GIFT   OF 


{Hi 


The  ^Method  of 
HENRY   JAMES 

Joseph  VParren  '"Beach 

Associate  ^Professor  of  English 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MINNESOTA 


NEW  HAVEN 
YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:   HUMPHREY  MILFORI> 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

MDCCCCXVIII 


COPYRIGHT,  1918 
BY  YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


First  published.  January,  1918 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Explanations 1 

Part  One:  The  Method .  9 

I.     Idea .  11 

-  II.     Picture 24 

III.  Revelation 38 

IV.  Suspense 50 

V.     Point  of  View 56 

VI.  Dialogue 72 

VII.  Drama 87 

VIII.  Eliminations 98 

^IX.  Tone Ill 

X.  Romance 120 

XL     Ethics        131 

The  Figure  in  the  Carpet .  145 

Part  Two:  Towards  a  Method 163 

I.     Obscure  Beginnings 165 

II.  Early  Prime:  (a)  Roderick  Hudson; 
(b)  The  American;  (c)  The  Portrait 
of  a  Lady;  (d)  The  Princess  Casamas- 

sima;  (e)  The  Tragic  Muse      .      .      .  191 

III.  Non-canonical:    (a)    Confidence,    The 
Bostonians,  The  Europeans;  (b)  Wash 
ington  Square 221 

IV.  Achievement :  The  Spoils  of  Poynton  .  233 


m  Contents 


PAGE 

V.  Technical  Exercises:  (a)  What  Maisie 
Knew;  (b)  The  Awkward  Age;  (c) 
The  Outcry;  (d)  The  Sacred  Fount  .  237 
VI.  Full  Prime:  (a)  The  Wings  of  the 
Dove;  (b)  The  Golden  Bowl;  (c)  The 
Ambassadors  ....  255 

Characters 271 

Bibliographical  Note 

Index 


THE  METHOD   OF   HENRY  JAMES 


EXPLANATIONS 

It  is  natural  that  books  should  multiply  on  the  subject 
of  Henry  James.  His  art  of  story-telling  is  so  conscious 
and  deliberate  that  it  offers  itself  unusually  well  to 
critical  examination.  There  is  indeed  in  his  work  a 
quite  sufficient  measure  of  that  happy  inspiration  which 
is  beyond  all  analysis  and  subject  to  no  principle.  But 
his  most  striking  peculiarity,  in  contrast  to  English  novel 
ists  in  general,  is  the  prominence  in  his  work  of  studied 
art.  Not  that  the  art  obtrudes  itself  unduly  upon  the 
attention  of  the  reader.  On  the  contrary:  it  is  uncom 
monly  well-bred  and  self-effacing.  But  for  all  that,  the 
mere  skill  of  the  craftsman  is  more  essential  to  the 
effectiveness  of  his  work  than  is  the  case,  for  example, 
with  Hardy  or  Meredith,  in  later  times  with  Mr.  Bennett 
or  Mr.  Wells,  or  in  earlier  times  with  Thackeray,  Scott 
or  Fielding.  These  novelists,  some  of  them  so  great,  are 
taken  up  to  such  an  extent  with  their  material  and  their 
attitude  towards  it,  as  to  have  comparatively  little  atten 
tion  left  for  the  niceties  of  art  in  the  disposition  of  it. 
They  may  be  likened  to  those  early  romantic  composers 
whose  devotion  is  so  singly  given  to  the  creation  and 
development  of  melody.  James  bears  relation  to  the 
more  sophisticated  composers  of  his  own  day  in  whose 
work  melody  has  become  subordinate  to  harmony,  in 
which  the  effect  of  the  whole  is  so  largely  dependent  on 
the  relations  of  part  to  part,  and  in  which  there  is  so 
much  wider  range  for  the  exercise  of  the  artist's  cunning. 
Whether  this  "sophistication,"  in  musical  or  literary  art/ 
may  not  be  the  sign  of  degeneration  from  the  noble  sim- 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


plicity  of  the  old  masters,  is  of  course  an  open  question. 
I  prefer  the  less  contentious  position  that  admits  of 
admiration  for  beauties  of  either  kind. 

A  special  invitation  to  the  study  of  James  is  found 
in  what  he  has  written  himself  about  the  art  of  fiction, 
above  all  in  the  prefaces  to  the  New  York  edition  of  his 
novels  and  tales.1  No  writer  of  fiction,  no  literary  artist 
in  any  genre,  has  ever  told  us  so  distinctly,  and  at  such 
length,  what  he  was  trying  to  do.  And  no  artist  has  ever 
explained  to  the  world  so  candidly  how  far  and  in  what 
respects  he  succeeded  in  realizing  his  intentions.  It  need 
not  be  inferred  from  this,  however,  that  James  is  the 
one  artist  least  in  need  of  explaining  by  others.  These 
prefaces  were  written  since  the  year  1906,  and  in  that 
ultimate  style  of  Mr.  James's  which  has  been  the  amaze 
ment  and  the  amusement  of  the  "vulgar"  in  all  his  latest 
work.  Deeply  interesting  as  they  are,  few  but  profes 
sional  students  would  have  the  hardihood  and  pertinacity 
to  make  their  way  through  these  explanatory  reviews 
distributed  over  twenty-four  volumes.  It  remains  for 
the  student  to  collect  and  set  in  order  these  scattered 
considerations,  to  view  them  in  connection  with  the  stories 
themselves,  and,  from  the  whole,  to  put  together  some 
connected  account  of  the  aims  and  method  of  our  author. 
It  should  be  observed  that  Mr.  James  included  in  the 
New  York  edition  hardly  more  than  half  his  work.  In 
consequence,  we  have  no  comment  of  his  own  on  novels 
so  important  in  the  history  of  his  development  as  "Wash- 
Announcement  is  made,  when  this  study  is  already  far  ad 
vanced  in  the  process  of  printing,  of  two  unfinished  novels  of 
James,  "The  Ivory  Tower"  and  "The  Sense  of  the  Past,"  together 
with  the  author's  preliminary  plans  and  sketches  for  the  com 
pletion  of  the  books,  documents  which  should  throw  yet  fuller 
light  on  his  methods  of  composition. 


Explanations 


ington  Square,"  "The  Bostonians"  and  "The  Sacred 
Fount."  There  comes  up  in  this  connection  the  interesting 
question  of  why  certain  stories  were  included  in  this  col 
lection  of  his  work  and  why  certain  others  were  left  out. 
And  the  general  question  starts  a  dozen  special  inquiries 
to  which  the  author  has  not  himself  made  explicit  answer, 
and  some  of  which  he  has  not  even  broached.  And  while, 
moreover,  it  is  highly  interesting  and  of  real  importance, 
to  see  any  artist  as  he  sees  himself,  we  are  naturally 
most  concerned  with  the  way  he  appears  to  us. 

In  this  study  we  shall  be  concerned  almost  exclusively 
with  the  novels,  that  is,  with  stories  long  enough  to  have 
made  more  than  four  or  five  installments  in  serial  publica 
tion.  This  mechanical  definition  is  practically  the  only 
means  available  for  distinguishing  between  his  novels 
and  his  "tales."  Mr.  James  seems  not  to  have  conceived 
the  "short  story"  in  the  rigorous  fashion  now  prevailing, 
and  there  is  little  essential  difference  in  technique  between 
his  short  and  his  long  stories.  His  "contes"  all  tend  to 
become  "nouvelles"  There  is  but  a  step,  and  that  a 
matter  of  length,  from  "The  Real  Thing"  to  "Daisy 
Miller,"  one  step  from  "Daisy  Miller"  to  "The  Spoils 
of  Poynton,"  and  but  one  more  from  "The  Spoils  of 
Poynton"  to  "The  American."  "Daisy  Miller"  we  may 
call  a  tale,  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton"  a  novel.  And  the 
novels  of  James  are  more  interesting  than  his  tales. 
While  he  has  done  many  brilliant  things  in  the  briefer 
form,  his  most  significant  work  is  in  the  more  extended 
narrative.  The  reason  for  this  should  appear  in  the 
course  of  our  discussion.2  It  is  enough  to  note  in  passing 
that,  while  the  tale  may  "be  the  natural  instrument  of  any 

2  See,  for  example,  p.  70 ;  but  compare  also  the  fourth  chapter 
of  Part  Two. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


writer  whose  forte  is  sharpness  of  outline,  liveliness  in 
rendering  the  surface  of  life,  the  novel  is  more  congenial 
to  one  whose  bent  is  for  the  fine  stroke,  the  rich  effect, 
and  who  revels  in  the  leisurely  development  of  character 
from  within. 

In  giving  any  description  of  the  novels  of  James,  one 
must  take  into  account  considerable  variations  according 
to  the  date  of  composition.  In  order  not  to  complicate 
matters,  I  shall  postpone  to  the  second  part  of  the  study 
what  is  a  subject  of  special  interest  in  itself,  the  evolution 
of  his  method,  the  gradual  process  by  which  he  assumed 
the  technique  that  is  most  characteristic  of  him.  It  will 
then  appear  that  his  writing  falls  into  two  main  periods, 
leaving  out  of  account  the  stories  written  before  1875, 
the  year  in  which  the  young  author  found  himself  in 
"Roderick  Hudson."3  The  period  of  his  early  prime  is 
one  of  fourteen  years,  ending  with  the  publication  in 
1889  of  "The  Tragic  Muse."3  These  years  brought  to 
light  several  great  novels,  notably  "The  Portrait  of  a 
Lady"  and  "The  Princess  Casamassima,"  as  well  as 
several  inferior  ones,  such  as  "Confidence"  and  "The 
Europeans."  After  this  period  James  seems  to  have 
intermitted  the  writing  of  novels  for  more  than  half  a 
decade.  The  period  of  maturity  begins  in  1896  with  "The 
Spoils  of  Poynton"  and  continues  down  to  1904,  the  date 
of  "The  Golden  Bowl."  "The  Outcry"  (1911)  must 
stand  by  itself  as  a  kind  of  belated  exercise  in  technique. 

The  second  part  of  our  study  will  give  particular  atten 
tion  to  the  product  of  the  early  period,  during  which  the 
story-teller  was  still  making  excursions  and  explorations. 
In  the  first  part  I  shall  endeavor  to  give  an  account  of 
the  method  as  it  was  finally  worked  out,  with  little  regard 

3  In  each  case  I  give  the  date  of  appearance  in  magazine. 


Explanations 


to  exceptions  and  experiments.  My  illustrations  will 
therefore  be  drawn  more  often  in  this  part  from  the  work 
of  the  later  period. 

For  it  is  the  latest  novels  of  James  that  are  most 
distinctive.  His  earlier  novels  show  more  likeness  to 
the  work  of  his  contemporaries  and  predecessors  in 
English  fiction.  It  is  perhaps  largely  on  this  account 
that  so  many  of  his  lovers  prefer  him  in  the  earlier  phase. 
And  they  may  be  justified  in  their  preference.  It  is  just 
possible  that  "Roderick  Hudson"  is  a  greater  book  than 
"The  Spoils  of  Poynton,"  that  "The  Tragic  Muse"  is 
greater  than  "The  Golden  Bowl."  But  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  there  is  more  of  James  in  "The  Spoils"  and 
"The  Golden  Bowl."  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  he 
takes  greater  satisfaction  himself  in  the  later  works,  and 
that  he  more  often  achieves  in  them  the  thing  at  which 
he  was  always  more  or  less  consciously  aiming.  Aside 
from  his  explicit  statements,  we  have  the  further  evi 
dence  of  his  rejections.  Of  the  seven  novels  which  he 
refused  admission  to  the  collective  edition,  all  but  one 
display  the  earlier  technique  in  marked  degree.4  The 
artist  who  was  unwilling  to  revive  "The  Bostonians"  was 
an  artist  who  took  more  pleasure  in  "The  Wings  of  the 
Dove"  than  in  "The  American."  If  we  are  justified  in 
describing  "The  Princess  Casamassima"  as  of  all  the 
earlier  novels  the  one  most  characteristic  of  its  author, 
this  is  because  it  anticipates  most  nearly  the  technique 
of  "The  Ambassadors,"  which  he  regards  as  "quite  the 
best,  'all  round,'  of  his  productions."5 

It  will  not  do  to  put  the  later  novels  out  of  court  on 
the  ground  of  mannerism  as  we  do  the  latest  poems  of 

4  The  exception  was  "The  Sacred  Fount."    For  this,  see  Part 
Two,  Chap.  V. 

5  Preface  to  "The  Ambassadors,"  Vol.  XXI,  p.  vii. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


Browning.  The  latest  novels  of  James  are  carefully 
planned  works  of  art.  They  are  doubtless  often  some 
what  overdone ;  there  is  a  certain  miscalculation  of  the 
effect  of  minute  detail.  But  their  peculiarities  are  not  in 
general  properly  to  be  described  as  mannerisms.  They 
derive  too  directly  from  the  original  plan  of  the  work, 
and  are  too  essential  to  its  execution.  A  mannerism  is  an 
excrescence  upon  a  work  of  art;  and  the  upshot  of  our 
whole  study  will  be  to  show  the  growing  impatience  of 
James,  as  he  proceeds,  with  anything  that  obscures  the 
rigorous  simplicity  of  design.6 

6  In  any  case  one  can  hardly  put  the  blame  for  one's  dislike 
upon  the  style.  We  shall  have  little  occasion  in  this  study  to 
discuss  the  style  of  James,  to  consider  in  detail  the  vocabulary, 
the  turn  of  the  phrase,  the  structure  of  the  sentence.  But  there 
is  one  word  that  may  be  said  in  passing.  The  style  of  the  later 
novels  is  not  so  markedly  different  from  that  of  the  earlier  ones 
as  is  sometimes  supposed;  and  a  close  study  of  alterations  made 
by  James  in  the  early  stories  in  revising  them  for  the  collective 
edition  shows  that  the  direction  taken  by  his  style  in  its  evolu 
tion  was  not,  in  these  cases,  towards  the  difficult  and  the  precious. 
In  dialogue  there  is  a  tendency  in  the  later  work  towards  greater 
informality,  towards  a  truly  colloquial  manner;  in  characteriza 
tion,  towards  greater  exactness.  What  may  be  called  the  density 
of  the  style  in  the  narrative  passages  must  be  referred  to  the 
uncommonly  detailed  reflection  of  the  thought  of  his  characters, 
of  characters  intensely  self-conscious.  Here  of  course  lies  the 
offense.  But  the  words  of  James  are  the  suitable  dress  of  his 
subject-matter.  And  his  style  is  pretty  well  kept  in  order,  in  all 
his  narratives,  by  the  jealous  discipline  of  the  story  itself.  If  so 
much  cannot  be  said  of  his  interviews  and  prefaces,  his  reminis 
cences  and  books  of  personal  observation,  that  is  partly  because 
he  has  in  these  no  story — no  strict  design — to  keep  him  in  order : 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  his  "letting  himself  go."  In  refer 
ence  to  the  novels,  if  we  are  to  complain  of  eccentricity,  it  is 
eccentricity  not  so  much  in  the  manner  of  expression  as  in  the 
manner  of  thought.  But  before  complaining  we  must  under 
stand. 


Explanations 


It  would  be  more  logical  to  condemn  the  whole  under 
taking  of  James  as  contrary  to  the  spirit  and  inherent 
method  of  the  novel,  and  as  foredoomed  to  failure.  The 
following  study  offers  plentiful  material  for  such  an 
interpretation,  especially  in  the  chapters  on  "Revelation," 
"Dialogue"  and  "Eliminations."  In  that  case  the  merit 
of  the  novels  would  be  practically  in  inverse  ratio  to  the 
author's  success  in  carrying  out  his  program,  and  the 
best  stories  would  certainly  be  found  in  the  earlier  period. 
I  can  find  no  fault  with  such  an  interpretation  except  that 
it  does  not  agree  with  my  own  impressions  and  prefer 
ences. 

It  may  be  inferred  from  this  program  that  I  am  not 
undertaking  an  authoritative  appraisal  of  the  work  of 
Henry  James.  I  shall  make  little  formal  attempt  to  grade 
his  stories  in  order  of  permanent  greatness.  Still  less 
shall  I  attempt  to  determine  his  exact  order  of  merit 
among  novelists.  These  are  exercises  for  posterity,7 
matters  that  somehow  insist  on  getting  themselves  deter 
mined  without  much  regard  for  the  opinion  of  contem 
porary  critics.  There  is  of  course  an  implied  judgment 
in  the  singling  out  of  a  writer  for  such  extended  study. 
Any  novelist  so  compelling  to  serious  consideration,  any 
art  so  fascinating  as  this,  must  have  a  very  high  order 
of  merit.  In  any  time  it  is  high  praise  for  a  work  of  art 
to  call  it  a  work  of  notable  distinction.  Assuming  so 
much  for  the  work  of  James,  our  aim  is  to  make  out  its 
peculiar  character.  We  are  to  look  for  the  special  ideal 

7  The  discerning  reader  may  infer  from  certain  signs  that  this 
study  was  largely  made  during  the  first  year  of  the  War,  while 
Mr.  James  was  still  living;  and  the  critical  reader  will  appreciate 
my  reluctance  to  assume  even  yet  the  authoritative  manner  of 
"posterity." 


8  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

and  method  of  this  story-teller,  and  to  estimate  the  degree 
in  which  this  method  is  applied  in  the  several  stories, 
the  success  with  which  they  realize  this  ideal.  If  this  is 
not  so  much  criticism  as  interpretation,  it  should  be  at 
least  a  long  first  step  towards  criticism. 

NOTE 

References  to  the  novels  and  tales  of  James,  are,  so  far  as 
possible,  to  the  "New  York"  edition,  Scribners,  1907-1909,  with 
the  number  of  the  volume  in  that  set.  In  the  case  of  certain 
tales  not  included  in  the  New  York  edition,  reference  is  made 
to  the  magazine  in  which  the  story  first  appeared.  References 
to  novels  not  included  are  to  the  following  editions:  "Watch 
and  Ward,"  Houghton  Mifflin,  1887;  "The  Europeans,"  9th  ed., 
Houghton  Mifflin;  "Washington  Square,"  Harpers,  1881;  "The 
Bostonians,"  Macmillan,  1886;  "The  Other  House,"  Macmillan, 
1896;  "The  Sacred  Fount,"  Scribners,  1901;  "The  Outcry," 
Scribners,  1911. 


PART  ONE:    THE  METHOD 


I 

IDEA 

The  work  of  James  is  of  course  not  an  isolated  phe 
nomenon.  He  is  naturally  a  creature  of  his  time.  And 
it  is  most  convenient  to  begin  with  a  consideration  of 
those  aspects  in  which  he  is  in  agreement  with  the 
greatest  of  his  immediate  predecessors.  The  main  point 
is  this,  that  James  builds  his  novels  primarily  upon  a 
motive,  or  an  idea.  In  this  respect  he  is  particularly  akin 
to  Meredith  and  George  Eliot. 

The  difference  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  Vic 
torian  novels  is  in  no  respect  more  marked  than  in  this 
matter.  The  earlier  English  novelists  had  generally  of 
course  a  subject, — an  historical  subject,  for  example,  like 
Charles  Reade  in  "The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,"  or  a 
social  subject  like  Thackeray  in  his  studies  of  high  life 
and  its  Bohemian  fringes.  In  these  novels  we  find  a 
certain  unity  of  composition  resulting  from  the  author's 
interest  in  the  historical  setting  or  in  social  groups  illus 
trating  the  manners  of  a  given  time.  We  also  call  to 
mind  how  several  of  the  earlier  Victorian  novelists  made 
fiction  a  vehicle  for  comment  upon  politics,  the  industrial 
order  and  social  abuses.  Still  more  striking,  in  Dickens, 
is  the  demonstration  of  a  proposition  in  human  nature  by 
the  story  of  "Hard  Times," — a  satire  upon  a  false  ideal 
of  education,  and  in  that  respect  suggestive  of  "Richard 
Feverel." 

But  several  things  are  to  be  observed.  In  most  cases 
in  Dickens,  the  exposure  of  social  abuses  is  an  accidental 


12  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

and  inorganic  element  in  the  novel.  Where  the  social 
motive  is  more  constant,  it  is  generally  made  so  at  the 
expense  of  the  story.  "Hard  Times"  is  indeed  a  logical, 
well-planned  bit  of  fictional  architecture.  But  it  is  prob 
ably  the  least  entertaining  performance  of  Dickens.  The 
characters  are  hardly  more  than  algebraic  symbols  neces 
sary  to  the  mathematical  demonstration.  It  requires  but 
the  most  cursory  comparison  with  the  great  canvases  of 
"Middlemarch"  and  "The  Egoist"  to  see  that  it  makes 
no  real  anticipation  of  the  work  of  the  later  Victorians. 
As  for  the  political  novels  of  Beaconsfield,  they  are  so 
loose-jointed  and  sketchy  that  we  call  them  novels  only 
on  condition  of  calling  them  bad  novels. 

Generally  speaking,  in  the  earlier  fiction,  the  indispen 
sable  of  the  novel  is  plot ;  in  the  later,  it  is  character.  Of 
"The  Portrait  of  a  Lady"  Mr.  James  tells  us :  "Trying 
to  recover  here,  for  recognition,  the  germ  of  my  idea,  I 
see  that  it  must  have  consisted  not  at  all  in  any  conceit  of 
a  'plot/  nefarious  name,  in  any  flash,  upon  the  fancy,  of  a 
set  of  relations,  or  in  any  one  of  those  situations  that, 
by  a  logic  of  their  own,  immediately  fall,  for  the  fabulist, 
into  movement,  into  a  march  or  a  rush,  a  patter  of  quick 
steps ;  but  altogether  in  the  sense  of  a  single  character,  the 
character  and  aspect  of  a  particular  engaging  young 
woman,  to  which  all  the  usual  elements  of  a  'subject,' 
certainly  of  a  setting,  were  to  need  to  be  superadded."  In 
this  connection  James  quotes  the  apology  of  Turgenieff, 
who  had  been  charged  with  not  having  "story"  enough. 
For  him,  too,  the  idea  started  "almost  always  with  a 
vision  of  some  person  or  persons  .  .  .  interesting  him  and 
appealing  to  him  just  as  they  were  and  by  what  they 
were,"  and  it  was  only  then  that  he  "had  to  find  for  them 
the  right  relations,  those  that  would  most  bring  them 


Idea  13 

out."1  All  the  story  needed  was  the  amount  required  to 
exhibit  the  relations  of  his  characters. 

In  so  far  as  we  can  distinguish  plot  and  character,  it  is 
of  course  character  in  which  the  idea  is  more  likely  to  be 
lodged.  But  what  we  have  before  us  is  much  more  than  a 
contrast  between  plot  and  character  as  the  main  subject 
of  the  novel.  Everyone  is  aware  of  the  prime  importance, 
in  most  of  Dickens,  of  the  characters.  This  is  very  dif 
ferent  from  the  importance,  in  Meredith  and  George 
Eliot,  of  character.  The  chief  aim  of  Dickens  is  to  make 
us  se_e  his  figures;  in  Meredith  and  George  Eliot,  and  in 
Henry  James,  the  aim  is  quite  as  much  to  make  us 
acquainted  with  the  character  of  the  dramatis  persona. 
This  is  what  James  has  in  mind  when,  in  an  early  essay  on 
Turgenieff,  he  discusses  the  pictorial  vividness  of  his 
characters  as  a  thing  by  itself,  and  then  goes  on  to  point 
out,  what  is  a  very  different  matter,  the  "representative 
character"  of  his  persons.  He  speaks  of  Turgenieff's 
great  admiration  for  Dickens,  which  he  attributes  to  the 
vividness  of  Dickens  in  the  drawing  of  his  characters. 
But  he  wonders  at  his  rating  Dickens  so  very  high,  since, 
he  says,  "if  Dickens  fail  to  live  long,  it  will  be  because 
his  figures  are  all  particular  without  being  general; 
because  they  are  individuals  without  being  types ;  because 
we  do  not  feel  their  continuity  with  the  rest  of  humanity 
— see  the  matching  of  the  pattern  with  the  piece  out  of 
which  all  the  creations  of  the  novelist  and  the  dramatist 
are  cut."2 

With  the  big  men  of  James's  time,  in  France  as  well 
as  in  England  and  Russia,  it  is  not  the  pictorial  vividness 
of  the  dramatis  personce  that  is  remarkable  so  much  as 

1  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  vi-vii.     Compare  also  "Partial  Portraits,"  pp. 
314-316. 

2  "Partial  Portraits,"  p.  318. 


14  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

their  representative  character.  These  men  are  not  so  much 
concerned  with  particular  figures  or  groups  of  figures 
as  with  general  types  of  character,  with  certain  more  or 
less  abstract  ideas  involving  character.  It  is  sufficient, 
for  the  French,  to  refer  to  Zola,  to  Bourget,  not  to  men 
tion  names  of  more  recent  notability.  In  English  the 
most  striking  examples  of  this  tendency  are  offered  by 
Meredith  in  the  whole  series  of  his  novels,  from  "Richard 
Feverel"  to  "The  Amazing  Marriage."  Underlying  all 
the  creations  of  his  imagination  is  Meredith's  conception 
of  the  natural  way  of  living;  and  his  stories  are  largely 
devoted  to  the  illustration  of  certain  long-lived  fashions 
of  violating  nature.  A  similar  treatment  of  character  is 
marked  in  some  of  the  novelists  of  our  later  generations, 
notably  in  Mr.  Galsworthy;  though,  judging  from  the 
remarks  of  Mr.  James  in  his  essay  on  "The  New  Novel,"3 
he  is  not  impressed  with  the  prevalence  of  a  shaping  idea, 
even  of  a  subject,  in  most  novels  of  the  present  day. 

The  prevailing  idea,  or  motive,  of  James  is  the  radical 
opposition  of  the  American-  and  the  European  ways  of 
taking  life.  In  "Daisy  Miller"  the  European  point  of 
view  is  represented  by  the  young  American  who,  in  the 
course  of  a  long  schooling  at  Geneva,  has  lost  his  under 
standing  of  American  character,  and  who  comes  too  late 
to  appreciate  the  candid  innocence  and  loveliness  of  the 
somewhat  "fresh"  American  girl.  In  "The  Wings  of 
the  Dove,"  the  new  world,  in  the  shape  of  a  ghostly  pres 
ence,  proves  the  shaming  and  undoing  of  the  old.  In 
"The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  the  new  seems  to  become  the 
living  victim  of  the  old.  In  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  the  two 
attitudes,  at  first  so  sharply  opposed  in  husband  and  wife, 
tend  to  become  identical.  Old  world  and  new  world  come 

3  In  "Notes  on  Novelists." 


Idea  15 

to  understand  one  another.  New  world  takes  on  some 
of  the  cunning  of  the  old ;  old  world,  some  of  the  spiritual 
insight  of  the  new. 

While  an  "idea"  must  be  general,  the  first  suggestion 
for  a  story  may  be  general  or  particular.  Often  for 
James  it  was,  as  he  tells  us,  some  actual  situation,  a 
morsel  of  real  life  picked  up  perhaps  in  conversation. 
The  first  hint  for  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton"  was  something 
dropped  by  the  author's  partner  at  dinner  about  a  lawsuit 
between  son  and  mother  over  the  ownership  of  certain 
valuable  furniture.  It  was  this  "mere  floating  particle 
in  the  stream  of  talk"  which,  as  he  said,  "communicated 
the  virus  of  suggestion"  for  the  large  developments  that 
followed.4  The  germ  of  "The  Ambassadors,"  still  to  be 
found  embedded  in  the  substance  of  that  story,  consisted 
in  the  remarks  made  by  a  person  of  distinction  one  Sun 
day  afternoon  at  a  social  gathering  in  a  Paris  garden. 
They  were  essentially  the  remarks  made  by  Lambert 
Strether  to  "Little  Bilham"  in  the  second  chapter  of  the 
fifth  book,  in  which  Strether  acknowledges  that  he  has 
made  the  mistake  of  not  living,  and  advises  his  young 
friend  to  "live  all  he  can."5  The  tale  of  "The  Real 
Thing,"  similarly,  had  its  germ  in  the  actual  experience 
of  "my  much-loved  friend  George  Du  Maurier."  A  man 
and  woman  of  real  gentility  had  applied  to  Du  Maurier 
for  engagement  as  artist's  models,  for  the  "social"  illus 
trations  he  was  doing  in  "Punch."  He  was  already  well 
served,  it  seems,  by  another  couple  who  were  far  from 
being  persons  of  gentility  but  who  played  the  part  to  the 
entire  satisfaction  of  the  artist.6 

4  Vol.  X,  pp.  v-vii. 
«  Vol.  XXI,  p.  v. 
6  VoL  XVIII,  p.  xx. 


16  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

But  however  particular  the  circumstance  that  attracts 
the  writer's  notice,  it  begins  at  once  to  be  worked  upon 
by  his  prepared  imagination,  to  be  assimilated  to  the 
general  substance  of  his  mental  world.  The  subject  of 
"The  Real  Thing"  ceases  to  be  a  particular  case  and 
comes  to  be  a  sort  of  problem  in  human  reactions.  Which 
are  likely  to  prove  the  more  satisfactory  models  for  an 
artist  wishing  to  make  convincing  illustrations  of  genteel 
life, — actual  gentlefolk  who  have  no  talent  for  posing,  no 
plasticity,  or  sitters  without  social  pretension  who  have 
yet  imagination  and  the  faculty  of  putting  on  whatever 
semblance  may  be  desired?  If  it  be  the  latter  that  win 
out  in  such  a  competition,  behold  an  irony  fit  for  the 
hand  of  a  writer  of  tales.  Nothing  is  said  by  Mr.  James 
as  to  the  outcome  of  the  suggested  competition  in  the 
case  of  Du  Maurier's  applicants,  or  whether  such  a  com 
petition  was  actually  set  on  foot  by  their  engagement. 
The  circumstances  very  early  left  the  realm  of  the  actual 
and  the  particular  and  entered  that  of  the  general  and 
the  representative. 

The  case  of  "The  Ambassadors"  again  illustrates  how 
the  particular  circumstance  is  liable  to  fall  into  some 
category  all  ready  for  it.  The  author  is  always  waiting 
to  pounce  upon  whatever  is  "to  his  purpose."  He  has 
been  musing  more  or  less  consciously  all  his  life  on  such 
a  situation  or  relationship.  The  idea  has  been  in  solution, 
as  it  were,  and  this  thing  heard  precipitates  it.  In  the 
present  instance,  that  of  the  remarks  that  suggested  to 
him  the  theme  of  "The  Ambassadors,"  "the  observation 
there  listened  to  and  gathered  up  had  contained  part  of 
the  'note'  I  was  to  recognize  on  the  spot  as  to  my  pur 
pose  .  .  .  the  rest  was  in  the  place  and  the  time  and  the 
scene  they  sketched :  these  constituents  clustered  and 
combined  to  give  me  further  support,  to  give  me  what  I 


Idea  17 

may  call  the  note  absolute." 7  This  is  a  characteristic  and 
remarkable  statement.  The  ultimate  seed  of  "The  Am 
bassadors"  would  seem  to  be  something  less  concrete 
even  than  a  situation,  a  problem  or  a  relationship.  It  is 
best  described  as  a  "note."  And  a  note  is  something 
only  to  be  recognized  by  its  vibration  in  unison  with  a 
similar  note  already  sounding  within  one's  self. 

In  the  case  of  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  and  in  that 
of  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove,"  each  of  which  is  built  up 
around  a  single  central  character,  we  are  not  told  of  any 
particular  suggestion  for  the  character  in  real  life.  Isabel 
Archer  and  Milly  Theale  seem  to  be  really  embodiments 
of  certain  long-considered  types, — types  each  of  a  human 
being  of  a  certain  sort,  or  of  a  human  being  in  a  certain 
predicament.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the  predicament 
is  a  "psychological,"  or  spiritual,  predicament.  For  even 
Isabel  Archer,  a  creation  of  James  in  his  earlier  period, 
finds  her  difficulty  rather  in  the  relation  of  her  ideals 
to  those  of  her  husband  than  in  the  objective  facts  of  the 
situation.  Of  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove"  and  its  heroine 
Mr.  James  says :  "The  idea,  reduced  to  its  essence,  is  that 
of  a  young  person  conscious  of  a  great  capacity  for  life, 
but  early  stricken  and  doomed,  condemned  to  die  under 
short  respite,  while  also  enamoured  of  the  world ;  aware 
moreover  of  the  condemnation  and  passionately  desiring 
to  'put  in'  before  extinction  as  many  of  the  finer  vibra 
tions  as  possible,  and  so  achieve,  however  briefly  and 
brokenly,  the  sense  of  having  lived."8  In  each  of  these 

7  Vol.  XXI,  p.  vi.    The  italics  are  mine. 

8  Vol.  XIX,  p.  v.    In  the  act  of  reading  proof  I  call  to  mind 
that,  while  my  statement  of  the  case  is  in  exact  accord  with  the 
account  of  James  in  the  preface  to  "The  Dove,"  he  does  suggest, 
in  "Notes  of  a  Son  and  Brother,"  the  existence  of  a  particular 
model  for  Milly  Theale ;  for  so  I  understand  the  allusion  on  the 


i8  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

novels  then,  while  the  subject  is  a  person,  it  is  a  person, 
in  origin,  typically  and  abstractly  conceived.  This  will 
appear  in  more  striking  fashion  when  we  come  to  consider 
the  process  by  which  the  author  developed  the  germ-idea 
in  the  circumstances  of  the  plot. 

Other  stories  of  James  are  still  more  obviously  abstract 
in  theme,  starting  as  they  do  not  with  a  central  character 
but  with  some  mere  problem  in  human  nature. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  books  of  James  are  to  be 
regarded  as  problem-novels.  This  will  be  made  clearer 
in  a  later  chapter.  A  problem-novel  or  a  problem-play, 
as  I  understand  it,  is  a  novel  or  a  play  which  undertakes 
to  solve,  or  at  least  to  state,  some  knotty  problem  of 
conduct.  It  frequently  sets  forth  the  predicament  of 
someone  at  odds  with  social  convention  or  the  law,  and 
is  supposed  to  recommend  prudence  by  an  exhibition  of 
its  contrary,  or  to  condemn  the  social  order  by  a  demon 
stration  of  its  disastrous  effects  on  human  nature.  Of 
course  such  a  problem  is  a  kind  of  idea.  But  it  is  only 
one  kind ;  and  it  is  quite  unnecessary  for  an  idea  to  take 
on  the  practical  intensity  of  a  problem  in  order  to  rank 
as  an  idea. 

The  word  problem,  as  used  in  reference  to  the  themes 
of  James,  means  something  to  be  figured  out  by  the 
author,  like  a  problem  in  physics, — something  related  to 
the  "problem"  of  present-day  fiction  merely  by  virtue  of 
its  abstractness.  A  remarkable  example  of  a  story  origi 
nating  in  such  a  problem  is  the  little  tale  entitled  "The 

last  page  of  that  book  to  the  death  of  a  dear  friend.  All  of 
which  goes  to  show  how  difficult  it  is  to  distinguish  the  indi 
vidual  and  the  general  in  any  of  his  characters.  His  books  of 
reminiscence  reveal  how  very  early  and  how  constantly  he  was 
typifying  and  making  representative  all  human  phenomena  that 
came  within  his  range  of  vision. 


Idea  19 

Story  in  It."  This  was  suggested  to  Mr.  James  by  the 
observation  of  a  distinguished  novelist  on  being  asked 
"why  the  adventures  he  imputed  to  his  heroines  were  so 
perversely  and  persistently  but  of  a  type  impossible  to 
ladies  respecting  themselves."  His  reply  had  been  to  point 
out  that  "ladies  who  respected  themselves  took  particular 
care  never  to  have  adventures,"  and  to  challenge  in  his  \ 
turn :  "A  picture  of  life  founded  on  the  mere  reserves  j 
and  suppressions  of  life,  what  sort  of  a  performance — 
for  beauty,  for  interest,  for  tone — could  that  hope  to  be  ?" 
This,  if  we  may  trust  the  indications  in  the  story  itself, 
was  the  point  of  view  of  a  Frenchman ;  and  the  American 
novelist  has  ready  the  hint  of  an  answer  doing  credit 
equally  to  his  Puritan  cleanliness  and  his  Yankee  inge 
nuity.  "The  thing  is,  all  beautifully,  a  matter  of  interpre 
tation  and  of  the  particular  conditions;  without  a  view 
of  which  latter  some  of  the  most  prodigious  adventures 
.  .  .  may  vulgarly  show  for  nothing.  However  that 
may  be,  I  hasten  to  add,"  says  Mr.  James,  "the  mere  stir 
of  the  air  around  the  question  reflected  in  the  brief  but 
earnest  interchange  I  have  just  reported  was  to  cause 
a  'subject,'  to  my  sense,  immediately  to  bloom  there."9 

Equally  abstract,  so  far  as  we  can  learn  from  the 
author,  was  in  origin  the  theme  of  "The  Awkward  Age." 
And  the  abstractness  of  theme  is  emphasized  by  the 
account  given  by  Mr.  James  of  the  function  assigned  to 
the  ten  books  into  which  the  novel  is  divided.  He  in-\ 
tended  the  novel  for  publication  serially  in  "Harper's 
Weekly,"  and  he  explained  his  scheme  to  the  editor  in 
advance  by  a  sort  of  chart  or  ground-plan  of  the  work. 
He  drew  on  a  sheet  of  paper  "the  neat  figure  of  a  circle 
consisting  of  a  number  of  small  rounds  disposed  at  equal 

» Vol.  XVIII,  pp.  xxii-xxiii. 


2O  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

distances  about  a  central  object.  The  central  object  was 
my  situation,  my  subject  in  itself,  to  which  the  thing 
would  owe  its  title,  and  the  small  rounds  represented  so 
many  distinct  lamps,  as  I  liked  to  call  them,  the  function 
of  each  of  which  would  be  to  light  with  all  due  intensity 
one  of  its  aspects.  .  .  .  Each  of  my  lamps'  would  be 
the  light  of  a  single  'social  occasion'  in  the  history  and 
intercourse  of  the  characters  concerned,  and  would  bring 
out  to  the  full  the  latent  color  of  the  scene  in  question 
and  cause  it  to  illustrate,  to  the  last  drop,  its  bearing  on 
my  theme." 10 

Once  given  the  germ  of  the  story,  its  motive  or  mere- 
idee,  the  circumstances  of  the  plot  are  evolved  with 
consistent  undeviating  logic  that  has  little  to  do  with  the 
older  novelists'  love  of  an  effect  for  its  own  sake.  This 
is  well  exemplified  in  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove,"  as  Mr. 
James  informs  us  in  detail  of  the  process  of  its  concep 
tion.  He  starts,  as  we  have  seen,  with  the  idea  of  "a 
young  person  conscious  of  a  great  capacity  for  life,  but 
early  .  .  .  condemned  to  die  under  short  respite,  while  also 
enamoured  of  the  world."  This  tells  us  little  of  the 
particular  circumstances  and  identity  of  the  young  per 
son,  though  Mr.  James  seems  always  to  have  had  his 
young  person  particularized  as  to  sex.  But  the  idea 
proceeds  to  take  on  concreteness  by  natural  process.  The 
surrender  of  everything  by  this  girl  would  be  enhanced 

10  Vol.  IX,  pp.  xvi  and  xvii.  Has  "Harper's  Weekly"  changed 
so  completely  in  character  since  1898;  or  was  the  naivete  of  Mr. 
James  in  hoping  for  success  with  its  readers  for  such  a  venture 
only  to  be  compared  with  his  naivete  in  supposing  this  series 
of  dialogue  to  be  in  the  manner  of  "Gyp"  or  of  Lavedan?  The 
question  has  lost  no  pertinence  since  the  submersion  of  "Harper's 
Weekly"  in  a  periodical  of  other  kidney. 


Idea  21 

in  poignancy  by  "the  sight  of  all  she  has" ;  hence  the  old 
New  York  family  and  the  great  wealth.  The  wealth  and 
the  lack  of  relatives  living  also  place  her  in  the  required 
situation  of  entire  freedom  of  action,  which  in  turn  makes 
still  stronger  the  sense  of  her  being  a  Tantalus.  And  to 
the  same  considerations  must  be  attributed  her  nation 
ality.  "I  had  from  far  back  mentally  projected  a  certain 
sort  of  young  American  as  more  the  'heir  of  all  the  ages' 
than  any  other  young  person  whatever  ...  ;  so  that  here 
was  a  chance  to  confer  on  some  such  figure  a  supremely 
touching  value!'^ 

So  much  for  the  central  character  herself.  And  now 
for  the  plot,  now  for  the  other  persons  involved  with  her 
in  the  web  of  circumstance.  Such  a  person  as  this,  says 
the  author,  falls  necessarily  "into  some  abysmal  trap." 
"She  would  constitute  for  others  (given  her  passionate 
yearning  to  live  while  she  might)  a  complication  as  great 
as  any  they  might  constitute  for  herself.  .  .  .  Our  young 
friend's  existence  would  create  .  .  .  round  her  very 
much  that  whirlpool  movement  of  the  waters  produced 
by  the  sinking  of  a  big  vessel  or  the  failure  of  a  great 
business."12  So  the  author  outlines  for  us  the  course 
of  the  logic  by  which  the  story  is  evolved  from  the  idea. 
If  it  is  a  logic  peculiar  to  his  own  imagination  and  experi 
ence  of  life,  that  is  merely  saying  that  it  is  the  logic  of 
all  art,  which  is  so  much  more  subjective  an  affair  than 
that  of  mathematics.  The  great  point  is  that  it  is  logic, 
of  whatever  order,  and  not  the  unlicensed  play  of  fancy, 
still  less  a  process  admitting  the  deliberate  search  for 
entertainment  without  regard  to  fitness  and  consistency. 

Referring  to  the  invention  of  the  plot  of  "The  Ambas 
sadors,"  Mr.  James  uses  the  very  word  logic.  Having 

11  Vol.  XIX,  p.  ix.    The  italics  are  mine. 

12  Id.,  pp.  ix  and  x. 


22  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

explained  what  was  the  original  hint  of  an  idea  and 
referred  to  Strether's  outburst  to  little  Bilham,  he  pro 
ceeds  to  set  forth  "that  supplement  of  situation  logically 
involved  in  our  gentleman's  impulse  to  deliver  himself 
in  the  Paris  garden  on  the  Sunday  afternoon — or  if  not 
involved  by  strict  logic  then  all  ideally  and  enchantingly 
implied  in  it.  ...  It  being  thus  the  respectable  hint  that 
I  had  with  such  avidity  picked  up,  what  would  be  the 
story  to  which  it  would  most  inevitably  form  the  center  ?" 
How  account  for  Strether  and  his  "peculiar  tone"?  "It 
would  take  a  felt  predicament  or  a  false  position  to  give 
him  so  ironic  an  accent.  .  .  .  Possessed  of  our  friend's 
nationality,  to  start  with,  there  was  a  general  probability 
in  his  narrower  localism.  .  .  .  He  would  have  issued, 
our  rueful  worthy,  from  the  very  heart  of  New  England 
— at  the  heels  of  which  matter  of  course  a  perfect  train 
of  secrets  tumbled  for  me  into  the  light."  Then  further : 
"What  the  'position'  would  infallibly  be,  and  why,  on  his 
hands,  it  had  turned  'false' — these  inductive  steps  could 
only  be  as  rapid  as  they  were  distinct.  I  accounted  for 
everything  ...  by  the  view  that  he  had  come  to  Paris 
in  some  state  of  mind  which  was  literally  undergoing, 
as  a  result  of  new  and  unexpected  assaults  and  infusions, 
a  change  almost  from  hour  to  hour.  .  .  .  The  false 
position,  for  our  belated  man  of  the  world  .  .  .  was 
obviously  to  have  presented  himself  at  the  gate  of  that 
boundless  menagerie  primed  with  a  moral  scheme  of 
the  most  approved  pattern  which  was  yet  framed  to  break 
down  on  any  approach  to  vivid  facts."13 

Mr.  James  makes  it  clear  that  the  logic  of  this  evolu 
tion  is  not  an  arbitrary  logic,  subject  to  his  capricious 
manipulation.  It  may  indeed  follow  the  channels  marked 

"  Vol.  XXI,  pp.  viii-xiii. 


Idea  23 

out  for  it  in  the  peculiar  topography  of  his  imagination. 
But  it  follows  these  channels  without  any  vagabondage. 
He  describes  the  process  indeed  as  if  he  had  little  to  do 
with  it  other  than  to  record  it.  "The  steps,  for  my  fable, 
placed  themselves  with  a  prompt  and,  as  it  were,  func 
tional  assurance — an  air  quite  as  of  readiness  to  have 
dispensed  with  logic  had  I  been  in  fact  too  stupid  for  my 
clue.  .  .  .  These  things  continued  to  fall  together,  as  by 
the  neat  action  of  their  own  weight  and  form,  even  while 
their  commentator  scratched  his  head  about  them;  he 
easily  sees  now  that  they  were  always  well  in  advance 
of  him."1* 

It  is  hardly  necessary,  I  suppose,  to  dwell  upon  the 
contrast  between  this  method  and  that  of  the  early  Vic 
torian  novelists.  This  confident,  responsible  inquiry 
after  the  characters  and  incidents  most  fitted  to  illuminate 
the  carefully  chosen  subject  of  the  picture  is  quite  a 
different  thing  from  the  search  for  incidents  and  charac 
ters  interesting  and  picturesque  in  themselves  and  for 
themselves.  It  is  in  this  matter  that  one  finds  the  closest 
likeness  of  the  novels  of  James  to  those  of  Meredith  and 
George  Eliot.  And  indeed  James  has  gone  much  farther 
than  these  late  Victorians  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  ideal  of 
variety  to  the  ideal  of  consistency. 

14  Vol.  XXI,  p.  xiii.  Compare  the  similar  language  used  in 
reference  to  the  plot  of  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  Vol.  Ill,  p.  xvii. 


II 

PICTURE 

James  is  distinguished  from  his  immediate  English 
predecessors  by  his  much  greater  preoccupation  with 
matters  of  form.  This  is  an  affair  not  merely  of  surface, 
but  strikes  deeper  and  touches  the  idea,  or  theme,  itself. 
Here  shows  the  fundamental  difference  between  the  work 
of  James  and  that  of  Meredith  and  George  Eliot.  All 
three  novelists  are  given  to  the  development  of  an  idea  or 
motive ;  the  difference  lies  in  the  way  in  which  the  motive 
is  conceived.  The  others  conceive  their  motive  more  as 
thesis  or  moral ;  James  conceives  his  as  the  subject  of  a 
picture. 

The  word  picture  thus  used  in  reference  to  the  themes 
of  James1  makes  a  figure  of  speech,  an  analogy,  quite  in 
the  spirit  of  his  own  elucidations.  It  is  intended  to  keep 
before  our  minds  the  inveterately  esthetic  bias  of  this 
author  and  to  emphasize  what  is  only  a  relative,  but  what 
is  nevertheless  a  broad,  appreciable  difference  between 
his  attitude  and  that  of  the  others  mentioned.  James's 
attitude  is  essentially  artistic,  theirs  essentially  philosoph 
ical.  Of  course  in  any  novel,  if  there  is  an  idea,  it  must 
get  itself  embodied  in  a  plot  involving  characters,  and  the 
whole  pattern  of  circumstance,  with  the  characters 
grouped  according  to  their  relations  and  their  qualities, 

1  Mr.  Wells  has  some  interesting  animadversions  on  what 
seems  to  him  (or  his  mouthpiece)  the  perversity  of  James  in 
confounding  the  novel  and  the  picture.  They  will  be  found  in 
the  fourth  chapter  of  "Boon,  the  Mind  of  the  Race,"  together 
with  an  amusing  parody  of  the  James  method. 


Picture  25 


may  be  thought  of  as  constituting  the  subject  of  a  picture 
and  a  happy  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  the  painter's 
skill.  Only  it  is  not  generally  so  thought  of  by  author  or 
reader,  especially  in  novels  conscious  of  an  "idea."  And 
in  the  case  of  Meredith  and  George  Eliot,  if  we  may 
suppose  these  terms  to  be  had  in  mind  at  all,  they  are, 
put  the  other  way  round.  The  characters  and  incidents 
are  intended  to  throw  light  upon  the  idea,  to  illustrate 
or  prove  it.  The  subject  exists  for  the  benefit  of  the  idea, 
not  the  idea  for  the  benefit  of  the  subject. 

The  contrast  is  most  striking  in  the  case  of  Meredith, 
whose  characters  never  get  over  that  habit  of  represent 
ing  abstractions  which  they  contracted  presumably  from 
the  example  of  Meredith's  father-in-law,  the  author  of 
"Nightmare  Abbey,"  and  in  which  they  were  confirmed 
by  his  own  theory  of  the  comic.  His  first  work  of  fiction 
was  a  philosophical  allegory  expressed  in  fantastic  narra 
tive  in  the  manner  of  the  "Arabian  Nights."  In  his  last 
novel,  the  very  names  of  the  persons  indicate  their  typical 
character  in  relation  to  the  great  debate  between  Nature 
and  sentimental  Romance.  Woodseer  is  the  clairvoyant 
prophet  of  Nature,  Fleet  wood  the  sentimentalist  seeking 
an  escape  from  the  natural.  And  for  practically  every 
novel  of  Meredith  it  would  be  possible  to  draw  up  a  table 
of  persons  suggestive  of  the  table  of  "humours"  prefixed 
by  Ben  Jonson  to  several  of  his  plays.  Nearly  every 
character  represents  something  in  the  philosophical 
scheme  of  the  story.  And  many  of  them  are  little  more 
than  philosophical  lay-figures.  One  has  but  to  name  such 
novels  as  "Sandra  Belloni"  and  "One  of  our  Conquerors" 
to  call  to  mind  whole  groups  of  characters  that  are  prac 
tically  failures  so  far  as  pictorial  effect  is  concerned. 
They  were  conceived  and  executed  with  originality  and 
gusto ;  but  they  remain  bizarre  and  puzzling  in  themselves 


26  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

and  ill-composed  in  relation  to  one  another.  This  is 
largely  owing,  I  feel,  to  the  author's  almost  total  neglect 
of  purely  artistic  considerations  of  the  larger  scope.  The 
characters  and  incidents  being  logically  evolved,  Mere 
dith's  solicitude  is  practically  confined  to  the  logic  of  this 
evolution.  If  the  evolution  is  perfectly  accomplished,  if 
each  character  says  what  he  has  to  say  to  the  thesis,  if 
each  incident  is  made  to  flash  its  facet  of  the  idea,  then 
all  is  well.  The  appeal  being  primarily  to  the  mind,  all 
conditions  are  fulfilled  if  once  the  mind  is  satisfied. 

James,  too,  starts  often  with  an  abstraction.  But  it  is 
not  a  thesis  or  a  moral  idea.  It  is  a  dramatic  situation, 
a  human  relationship,  perhaps  a  social  irony, — in  short,  a 
composition.  It  is  an^arrangement  of  objects  (that  is,  of 
the  persons  and  incidents  involved) — 5y  likeness  and 
opposition,  by  balance  and  cross-reference,  with  all  regard 
to  emphasis  and  proportion, — corresponding  to  the 
arrangement  of  figures,  of  background  and  foreground, 
of  masses  and  lines,  in  a  painting.  Like  the  subject  of 
a  painting,  it  is  chosen  out  of  all  other  possible  subjects 
as  the  one  most  amenable  to  the  art  of  representation. 
Intellectual  processes  are  plentifully  there  to  guide  the 
evolution  of  subject  into  story.  But  the  appeal  is  made 
to  the  taste  or  imagination,  and  the  intelligence,  or  logical 
sense,  of  author  and  reader  is  merely  an  instrument  of 
the  esthetic  intention. 

The  difference  is  pronounced  in  the  treatment  of  moral 
values.  These  earlier  novelists  are  concerned  primarily 
with  the  moral  values  as  such.  They  wish  their  fable 
to  make  plain  the  nature  of  right  and  wrong,  or  at  least 
of  wise  and  foolish,  and  they  wish  to  set  the  one  in  such 
a  light  as  to  recommend  it  for  imitation.  They  are  not, 
of  course,  crudely  moralistic,  being  as  they  are  enlight 
ened  artists.  But  their  works  of  fiction  are  constantly 


Picture  27 


devoted,  like  their  other  writing,  to  the  exposition  of  a 
philosophy  of  life.  Consider,  for  example,  the  care  with 
which  George  Eliot  made  choice  of  her  characters  in 
"Middlemarch"  so  as  to  represent  all  the  degrees  of  folly 
and  wisdom.  With  what  deliberation  this  positivist 
philosopher  has  noted  the  moral  values  and  deficiencies 
of  her  Caleb  Garth,  her  Fred  Vincy,  her  Doctor  Lydgate, 
not  to  mention  the  discriminated  characters  of  "Adam 
Bede"  and  "Felix  Holt"! 

Our  American  novelist  showed  himself  very  early  con 
scious  of  the  issues  involved.  In  an  essay  on  George 
Eliot  written  in  1866,  when  he  had  not  yet  himself  made 
public  any  story  of  novel  length,  speaking  of  her  as  a 
philosopher,  and  in  that  respect  superior  to  Dickens  and 
Thackeray,  he  felt  it  necessary  to  indicate  his  reservations 
on  the  side  of  the  esthetic.  "Considerable  as  are  our 
author's  qualities  as  an  artist,"  writes  the  young  critic, 
"and  largely  as  they  are  displayed  in  'Romola,'  the  book 
strikes  me  less  as  a  work  of  art  than  as  a  work  of 
morals."2  Twenty  years  later,  in  his  dialogue  on  "Daniel 
Deronda,"  he  complains  of  the  artificiality  and  unreality 
of. all  in  that  book  that  has  to  do  with  Daniel  himself. 
Now  the  part  that  has  to  do  with  Daniel  was  precisely, 
as  we  know,  a  development  of  the  sort  of  motive  which 
appealed  to  George  Eliot,  which  was  a  moral  rather  than 
an  artistic  motive.  Readers  generally  agree  with  Mr. 
James  that  the  character  of  Daniel  Deronda  is  an  artistic 
failure ;  and  yet  so  deep  is  the  appeal  to  our  moral  nature 
that  few  readers  can  have  lost  interest  before  the  com 
pletion  of  the  history. 

James  deals  equally  with  moral  values  (as  will  be 
shown  at  length  in  our  chapter  on  "Ethics"),  but  he  is 
not  concerned  with  them  in  their  practical  aspect.  He 

2  "Views  and  Reviews/'  p.  33. 


28  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

is  not  setting  out  to  recommend  the  right  and  give  warn 
ing  against  the  wrong.  He  is  not  even  trying  to  make 
clear  their  nature  as  right  and  wrong :  his  aim  is  neither 
scientific  nor  ethical.  His  concern  is  with  the  appearance 
made  by  right  and  wrong,  if  we  can  even  indicate  his 
scale  of  values  in  terms  so  downright  as  these.  They 
are  colors  upon  his  palette,  lines  and  masses  available  for 
the  comparatively  transcendental  uses  of  composition. 
Hence  the  artist's  delight  in  "ironies,"  which  are  patterns 
of  circumstance  so  revolting  to  the  practical,  the  moral 
sense,  while  often  so  pleasing  in  their  appeal  to  the  imag 
ination.3 

Only  the  artist  could  speak  as  James  does  of  the  sub 
ject  of  "What  Maisie  Knew."  His  imagination  had  been 
caught  first,  he  tells  us,  by  "the  accidental  mention  .  .  . 
made  to  him  of  the  manner  in  which  the  situation  of 
some  luckless  child  of  a  divorced  couple  was  affected 
I.  .  .  by  the  remarriage  of  one  of  its  parents."  Here 
were  great  possibilities  for  art.  "Sketchily  clustered 
even,  these  elements  gave  out  that  vague  pictorial  glow 
jwhich  forms  the  first  appeal  of  a  living  'subject'  to  the 
painter's  consciousness."  But  this  subject  could  be 
greatly  enhanced  in  value  by  the  addition  of  certain 
elements  to  the  plot.  The  chief  of  these  was  the  remar- 
rage  of  both  parents  instead  of  merely  one,  and  then 

V  It  will  now  be  clear  how  far  the  novels  of  James  are  from 
being  problem-novels.  One  would  hesitate  to  apply  the  term  even 
to  the  novels  of  Meredith;  and  James,  we  see,  has  Meredith, 
not  to  speak  of  George  Eliot,  between  him  and  the  odious  genre. 
It  would  be  easy  to  state  the  theme  of  "The  Awkward  Age,"  or 
that  of  "The  Ambassadors"  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  into  relief 
a  latent  problem, — the  problem,  say,  for  "The  Awkward  Age," 
of  the  debutante  and — to  use  the  term  in  vogue — "sex-hygiene." 
But  this  is  precisely  what  Mr.  James,  in  all  his  discussions  of 
these  books,  takes  particular  pains  to  avoid. 


Picture  29 


the  formation  of  a  new  tie  between  the  step-parents. 
The  beauty  of  the  situation  would  be  to  have  the  innocent 
young  child  made  partly  responsible  for  the  formation 
of  the  new  guilty  relation.  Mr.  James  dwells  with 
reminiscent  joy  upon  the  gradual  emergence  of  this  idea, 
so  full  of  "charm,"  of  "virtue"  to  the  "intellectual  nos 
tril."  The  upshot  of  all  his  pleasant  exploration  was  the 
discovery  of  what  he  calls  "the  full  ironic  truth"  of  the 
situation.  "At  last  ...  I  was  in  presence  of  the  red 
dramatic  spark  that  glowed  at  the  core  of  my  vision  and 
that,  as  I  gently  blew  upon  it,  burned  higher  and  clearer. 
This  precious  particle  was  the  full  ironic  truth — the  most 
interesting  item  to  be  read  into  the  child's  situation  .  .  . 
The  child  seen  as  creating  by  the  fact  of  its  forlornness 
a  relation  between  its  step-parents,  the  more  intimate 
the  better,  dramatically  speaking;  the  child,  by  the  mere 
appeal  of  neglectedness  and  the  mere  consciousness  of 
relief,  weaving  about,  with  the  best  faith  in  the  world, 
the  close  web  of  sophistication;  the  child  becoming  the 
center  and  pretext  for  a  fresh  system  of  misbehaviour, 
a  system  moreover  of  a  nature  to  spread  and  ramify: 
there  would  be  the  'full'  irony,  there  the  promising  theme 
into  which  the  hint  I  had  originally  picked  up  would 
logically  flower.  No  themes  are  so  human  as  those  that 
reflect  for  us,  out  of  the  confusion  of  life,  the  close 
connection  of  bliss  and  bale,  of  the  things  that  help  with 
the  things  that  hurt,  so  dangling  forever  before  us  that 
bright  hard  medal,  of  so  strange  an  alloy,  one  fact  of 
which  is  somebody's  right  and  ease  and  the  other  some 
body's  pain  and  wrong."4  It  is  interesting  to  reflect  how 
similar  is  the  position  of  Milly  Theale  and  that  of  Maggie 
Verver  to  that  of  Maisie,  and  how  completely  all  that 
is  said  here  of  the  theme  of  the  earlier  story  applies  to 
4  Vol.  XI,  pp.  v-viii. 


jo  The  Method  of  Henry  James 


those  of  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove"  and  "The  Golden 
Bowl." 

In  all  his  discussions  Mr.  James  never  speaks  in  any 
tone  other  than  that  of  an  artist  appraising  the  points 
of  a  "subject" ;  and  I  recall  no  place  in  which  he  speaks 
at  all  of  the  moral  tendency  of  his  work  save  to  glance 
with  impatience  at  "the  dull  dispute  over  the  'immoral' 
subject  and  the  moral."5  The  question  about  any  subjecl_ 
that  disposes  of  all  others  is  simply,  he  tells  us,  "Is  it 
valid,  in  a  word,  is  it  genuine,  is  it  sincere,  the  result 
of  some  direct  impression  or  perception  of  life?"  The 
determining  factor  for  a  work  of  art  is  the  artist  himself 
and  his  way  of  envisaging  the  facts.  And  the  chief 
difference  between  one  sincere  work  of  art  and  another 
would  appear  to  be  merely  a  greater  poverty  or  richness 
of  medium,  the  medium  being,  in  Mr.  James's  figure,  the 
"enveloping  air  of  the  artist's  humanity."  When  Mr. 
James  speaks  of  the  subject  of  a  novel  as  of  "an  ideal 
beauty  of  goodness,"  he  means,  as  he  at  once  explains— 
he  is  speaking  of  "The  Ambassadors" — that  it  is  a  subject 
"the  invoked  action  of  which  is  to  raise  the  artistic  faith 
to  its  maximum."6  It  is  an  ideal  theme  not  because 
of  the  value  of  its  teaching,  not  because  of  the  wisdom 
that  one  rubs  off  from  it,  but  because  of  the  intensity 
of  its  appeal  to  "the  artistic  faith." 

It  thus  appears  that  Henry  James  was  strongly  imbued 
with  the  principle  of  "art  for  art's  sake."  And  if  he 
shows  a  divergence  in  this  respect  from  the  feeling  of 
the  great  Victorian  novelists,  that  is  but  the  natural  result 
of  his  position  in  time.  It  is  not  without  significance 
that  three  of  his  tales — all  dealing  with  literature  and  its 
makers — appeared  in  the  early  numbers  of  "The  Yellow 

6  Vol.  Ill,  p.  ix. 
6  Vol.  XXI,  p.  vii. 


Picture  31 


Book,"7  and  that  the  first  of  his  longer  works  in  which 
he  entirely  found  himself  were  likewise  the  product  of 
the  esthetic  "nineties."  Nor  should  we  overlook,  in  this 
connection,  the  French  influence.  The  reader  of  Mr. 
James's  volumes  of  reminiscence  will  recall  the  important 
part  played  in  the  domestic  economy  of  Henry  James, 
Senior,  by  the  "Revue  des  Deux  Mondes."  The  novels  of 
George  Sand  seem  next  only  to  those  of  Charles  Dickens 
in  the  greediness  with  which  they  were  anticipated  and 
devoured  by  all  members  of  the  family.  One  recalls  the 
later  intimacy  of  Henry  James,  Junior,  in  the  community 
of  great  French  novelists  of  which  the  perhaps  greater 
Russian  Turgenieff  was  a  naturalized  citizen.  Perhaps 
not  less  important  as  a  shaping  influence  was  the  early 
haunting  of  Parisian  picture-galleries  by  William  and 
Henry  James,  with  the  short  period  of  study  at  Newport 
under  direction  of  William  Hunt.  Long  before  his  first 
brief  essay  in  fiction  had  found  its  benevolent  editor,  the 
young  writer  was  thoroughly  soaked  in  the  terms  and  con 
ceptions  of  pictorial  art.  And  his  later  career  was  not  such 
as  to  let  him  drop  for  a  moment  any  of  those  dear  solici 
tudes  of  painter  and  sculptor  that  are  at  once  the  bane  and 
solace  of  the  artist's  life.  In  his  interpretative  prefaces, 
terms  from  the  fine  arts  are  next  in  frequency  to  those  of 
dramatic  reference,  if  indeed  they  do  not  actually  exceed 
them  in  number. 

The  great  word  for  Mr.  James  is  composition.  In 
the  early  essay  from  which  I  have  already  quoted,  he 
writes  of  George  Eliot  as  not  remarkably  strong  in  com 
position,  and  is  much  occupied  in  considering  the  relative 

?  These  were  "The  Death  of  the  Lion"  (1894),  "The  Coxon 
Fund"  (1894)  and  "The  Next  Time"  (1895).  Mr.  James  has 
some  reminiscent  remarks  on  his  connection  with  this  periodical 
in  the  preface  to  Vol.  XV. 


32 '  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

\^ • — 

merits  of  her  different  works  in  the  matter  of  "dramatic 
continuity"  in  distinction  from  a  "descriptive,  discursive 
method  of  narration."  8  Many  years  later,  at  the  end  of 
his  road,  he  is  chiefly  taken  up,  in  his  prefaces,  with  the 
subtleties,  often  the  "super-subtleties"  (as  he  calls  them 
himself),  of  composition,  because  this  alone  is  "positive 
beauty."9  The  first  obvious  requirement  of  composition 
is  unity,  or  pictorial  fusion,  of  the  diverse  elements  in  a 
story.  This  is  considered  at  length  by  Mr.  James  in 
connection  with  his  problem  in  designing  "The  Tragic 
Muse."  The  idea  of  this  book,  as  he  first  conceived  it, 
involved  two  distinct  subjects,  what  he  calls  his  "political 
case"  (the  story  of  Nick  Dormer)  and  what  he  calls 
his  "theatrical  case"  (that  of  Miriam  Rooth).  How  put 
these  subjects  together  so  as  not  to  "show  the  seam"? 
His  own  problem  leads  him  to  reflections  on  the  want 
of  "pictorial  composition"  in  so  many  novels  of  great 
popularity  and  of  classic  distinction.  "There  may  in  its 
absence  be  life,  incontestably,  as  /The  Newcomes'  has 
life,  as  'Les  Trois  Mousquetaires,'  as  Tolstoi's  Teace 
and  War'  have  it ;  but  what  do  such  large  loose  baggy 
monsters,  with  their  queer  elements  of  the  accidental 
and  the  arbitrary,  artistically  mean?  .  .  .  There  is  life 
and  life,  and  as  waste  is  only  life  sacrificed  and  thereby 
prevented  from  'counting,'  I  delight  in  a  deep-breathing 
economy  and  an  organic  form.  My  business  was  accord 
ingly  to  'go  in*  for  complete  pictorial  fusion,  some  such 
common  interest  between  my  first  two  notions  as  would, 
in  spite  of  their  birth  under  quite  different  stars,  do  them 
no  violence  at  all."  And  he  tells  us  how  he  managed  that 
difficult  business.  "From  the  moment  I  made  out  .  .  . 
my  lucky  title,  that  is  from  the  moment  Miriam  Rooth 

8  "Views  and  Reviews,"  p.  29. 
8  Vol.  XXI,  p.  xvii. 


Picture  33 


herself  had  given  it  me,  so  this  young  woman  had 
given  me  with  it  her  own  position  in  the  book,  and  so 
that  in  turn  had  given  me  my  precious  unity,  to  which 
no  more  than  Miriam  was  either  Nick  Dormer  nor  Peter 
Sherringham  to  be  sacrificed." 10 

Another  pictorial  consideration  calls  for  the  device 
described  by  the  author  as  "foreshortening."  This  he 
must  on  occasion  resort  to  for  maintaining  the  desired 
balance  between  the  first  and  second  halves  of  a  novel. 
He  frequently  fails,  through  excess  of  foresight,  to  get 
the  "centre  of  his  structure"  actually  placed  in  the  middle 
of  the  book.  "The  first  half  of  a  fiction  insists  ever  on 
figuring  to  me  as  the  stage  or  theatre  for  the  second  half, 
and  I  have  in  general  given  so  much  space  to  making  the 
theatre  propitious  that  my  halves  have  too  often  proved 
strangely  unequal.  Thereby  has  arisen  with  grim  regu 
larity  the  question  of  artfully,  of  consummately  masking 
the  fault  and  conferring  on  the  false  quantity  the  brave 
appearance  of  the  true."  His  very  mistakes  are  occasion 
for  pleasurable  exercise,  for  it  is  clear  he  takes  great 
delight  in  meeting  this  grim  question.  "Therein  lies  the 
secret  of  the  appeal,  to  [the  artist's]  mind,  of  the  success 
fully  foreshortened  thing,  where  representation  is  arrived 
at  ...  not  by  the  addition  of  items  .  .  .  but  by  the  art  of 
figuring  synthetically,  a  compactness  into  which  the  imag 
ination  may  cut  thick,  as  into  the  rich  density  of  wedding- 
cake."11  While  the  above  remarks  were  made  in  special 
reference  to  "The  Tragic  Muse,"  the  author  often 
encountered  the  same  fascinating  problem,  notably  in 
writing  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove."  The  latter  half  of 
that  book  he  calls  "the  false  and  deformed  half"  because 

1°  Vol.  VII,  p.  xiii. 
11  Id.,  pp.  xii-xiii. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


of  the  recurrence  of  his  "regular  failure  to  keep  the  ap 
pointed  halves  of  his  whole  equal."  "This  whole  corner 
of  my  picture  bristles  with  'dodges'  .  .  .  for  disguising 
the  reduced  scale  of  the  exhibition,  for  foreshortening 
at  any  cost,  for  imparting  to  patches  the  value  of  pres 
ences  .  .  .  [showing]  what  a  tangled  web  we  weave 
when  —  well,  when,  through  our  mislaying  or  otherwise 
trifling  with  our  blest  pair  of  compasses,  we  have  to 
produce  the  illusion  of  mass  without  the  illusion  of 
extent."12 

Even  the  exigencies  of  serial  publication  give  occasion 
for  the  exercise  of  the  artistic  faculty.  Mr.  James  men 
tions,  in  connection  with  "The  Ambassadors,"  the  inge 
nuity  called  for  in  planning  the  "recurrent  breaks  and 
resumptions"  of  the  story  in  such  manner  as  to  maintain 
consistency  of  effect  in  spite  of  them.  Here  again  he 
mentions  the  difficulty  not  to  complain  of  it  but  rather  to 
rejoice  in  it  as  an  opportunity  for  the  exhibition  of  one's 
finest  skill.  By  the  time  of  the  publication  of  "The 
Ambassadors,"  in  1903,  he  had  long  been  accustomed 
actively  to  adopt  this  serial  interruption  "so  as  to  make 
of  it,  in  its  way,  a  small  compositional  law."13  It  is 
evident  that  each  of  the  twelve  books  of  "The  Ambassa 
dors,"  or  each  larger  section  of  the  other  novels,  is  to 
be  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  separate  panel  of  a  screen 
or  division  of  a  wall-surface,  and  that  the  architectural 
conditions  limiting  the  size  and  form  of  each  are  made 
to  contribute  their  part  to  the  effect  of  each  division  and 
of  the  whole.  Did  ever  the  passion  for  order  and  beauty 
more  signally  triumph  over  ugly  disorder  in  the  nature 
of  things? 

12  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  xviii-xix. 
is  Vol.  XXI,  pp.  xiv-xv. 


Picture  35 


The  pictorial  conception  of  his  themes  is  well  exempli 
fied  in  the  series  of  stories  presenting  the  American 
abroad.  The  formula  is  most  frequently  something  like 
this :  a  simple,  candid,  but  very  fine  and  lustrous  soul 
seen  against  a  dense  murky  background  of  sophisticated 
manners  and  ways  of  thought.  Most  often  it  is  an 
American  woman  that  is  thus  set  in  relief  against  the 
European  background.  Such  is  the  subject  of  "Daisy 
Miller"  and  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady"  in  the  earlier 
period,  and,  in  the  later  period,  of  "The  Wings  of  the 
Dove"  and  "The  Golden  Bowl."  Mr.  James  makes  no 
secret  of  his  fondness  for  the  "sinister"  and  the  "por 
tentous"  as  colors  in  his  picture;  these  colors,  combined 
with  the  mystery  which  is  a  still  more  constant  source  of 
interest,  contribute  to  the  rich  complexity  of  which  he  is 
so  fond.  And  they  serve  moreover  to  heighten  the  con 
trast  involved  in  the  subject,  to  create  an  effect  of 
chiaroscuro.  Most  effective  pictorially  are  the  figures 
of  Isabel  Archer  in  "The  Portrait"  and  Milly  Theale  in 
"The  Dove."  But  the  secret  of  this  effectiveness  lies 
more  in  the  background  than  in  the  main  foreground 
subject.  As  much  art  went  to  the  creation  of  Madame 
Merle  and  Gilbert  Osmond  as  to  that  of  Isabel.  It 
required  a  greater  mastery  of  the  brush  to  give  us  Kate 
Croy  than  Milly  Theale  herself.  If,  by  the  way,  the 
relation  of  Isabel  and  Osmond  suggests  that  of  Gwen 
dolen  Harleth  and  Grandcourt  in  "Daniel  Deronda,"  it 
will  be  only  to  remind  us  how  much  more  convincing 
and  more  effective  James  made  this  background  of  the 
cold  and  the  dark.  And  the  superiority  of  James  in  this 
painter's  job  arises  largely  from  his  stronger  conscious 
ness  of  its  being  a  question  of  painting. 

I  have  pressed  the  comparison  with  George  Eliot  and 
Meredith  because  they  are  the  two  novelists  most  like 


36  The  Method  of  Henry  James — 

James  in  procedure  so  far  as  the  idea  is  concerned.14 
Many  of  the  earlier  English  novelists,  whom  we  have 
seen  to  be  very  little  versed  in  the  "idea,"  are  often  very 
great  artists  in  the  matter  of  picture.  But  it  is  not  in  the 
same  sense  as  that  in  which  James  is  such  a  master  of 
picture.  The  droll  and  the  grotesque  figures  of  Dickens 
are  of  course  drawn  with  an  intensity  to  which  no  other 
maker  of  fiction  can  hope  to  approach.  Hardly  less 
remarkable  is  Dickens's  faculty  of  making  us  see  the 
London  streets  and  buildings  that  form  the  setting  of 
his  dramas.  In  some  of  his  later  stories,  moreover,  he 
shows  great  ability  in  weaving  plots  of  complex  and 
studious  pattern.  But  for  composition  proper  he  has  no 
regard,  if  indeed  he  has  any  inkling  of  what  it  means ; 
and  it  would  be  an  over-great  stretching  of  our  figure 
to  apply  the  term  picture  to  the  general  theme  or  subject 
of  any  of  his  stories.  Thackeray  had  more  of  the 
artist's  sense  for  scale  of  values.  But  he  was  far  from 
conceiving,  let  alone  desiring,  for  his  novels,  that  pre 
served  consistency  of  tone,  that  constant  reference  to 
the  center  of  all  parts  of  the  canvas,  in  which  James  took 
so  much  satisfaction  in  his  own  work.15  We  need  not 
point  out  the  complete  want  of  coherent  scheme  in  such  an 
inferior  work  as  "The  Virginians."  We  may  find  our  illus- 

14  I  do  not  mean  to  consider  the  question  of  personal  indebted 
ness  of  James  to  either  of  these  writers.     Most  profound  is  his 
silence  on  the  subject  of  Meredith,  whom  he  mentions,  so  far  as 
I  have  noticed,  only  as  a  contributor  in  early  days  to  "Once  a 
Week."    He  has  much  more  to  say,  first  and  last,  about  George 
Eliot,  and  he  was  doubtless  somewhat  influenced  by  her  work. 
But  all  that  we  need  assume  in  reference  to  these  three  writers 
so  near  in  time  is  that  likeness  of  method   natural  to  artists 
subject  to  similar  influences. 

15  Note  what  he  says  on  the  subject  in  connection  with  "The 
Tragic  Muse"  in  Vol.  VII,  pp.  vii  and  xxii. 


Picture  37 


trations  in  Thackeray's  greatest  work,  and  note  the  com 
parative  neglect  of  all  but  the  central  portrait  in  "Vanity 
Fair,"  or,  if  not  neglect,  the  comparative  failure  then  in 
the  handling  of  the  sub-plot,  along  with  the  correlative 
fact  of  attention  squandered  upon  insignificant  minor 
characters  for  whom  a  sense  of  proportion  prescribes  the 
scantiest  treatment.  We  are  here  taking  note  merely, 
it  may  be,  of  an  earlier  fashion  in  the  design  of  the  novel. 
For  it  needs  but  the  mention  of  George  Moore,  of  John 
Galsworthy,  of  Joseph  Conrad,  to  give  assurance  that 
the  fashion  represented  by  Henry  James  was  to  find  a 
most  respectable  following  if  not  actually  to  supersede 
that  of  Thackeray.  And  we  have  only  to  name  Charles 
Reade,  Bulwer-Lytton,  Disraeli,  to  remind  ourselves  how 
much  more  striking  is  the  contrast  when  we  bring  into 
comparison  the  second-class  novelists  of  the  earlier  time. 
It  is  a  chief  distinction  of  James  that  he  was  the  first  to 
write  novels  in  English  with  a  full  and  fine  sense  of  the 
principles  of  composition. 


Ill 

REVELATION 

In  naming  points  in  which  James  has  passed  beyond 
this  and  that  great  novelist,  we  need  not  use  the  word 
surpassed.  We  must  be  careful  not  to  write  as  if  the 
world  of  readers,  or  even  the  world  of  critics,  were 
agreed  upon  the  merits  of  his  work.  Mr.  James  must 
have  learned  long  since  to  content  himself  with  the  some 
what  frigid  respect  of  the  great  world  of  reviewers,  and 
to  look,  for  a  warmer  and  less  guarded  affection,  to  a 
small  band  of  devotees.  And  this  is  largely  because  of 
the  extremes  to  which  he  has  carried  his  conception  of 
the  novel  in  terms  of  picture. 

This  pictorial  preoccupation  goes  so  far  as  almost  to 
bring  about  a  reversal  of  the  essential  method  of  fiction. 
The  essential  method  of  fiction  is,  or  has  always  been, 
narrative.  The  earliest  English  novels  consisted  of  a 
series  of  adventures,  whose  thread  might  generally  be 
cut  off  anywhere  with  little  damage  to  any  plot  there 
was.  This  is  true  for  Smollett  almost  as  much  as  for 
Defoe.  Even  in  the  case  of  Richardson,  whose  novels 
have  a  real  story,  with  beginning,  middle  and  end,  and 
with  narrative  close-wrought  and  cumulative  in  effect, 
we  have  yet  to  make  exceptions,  and  to  acknowledge  that 
the  actual  story  of  "Pamela"  is  contained  in  the  first 
volume,  while  the  second  and  third  volumes  are  like 
instructive  appendices.  The  early  conception  of  the  novel 
when  conscious  of  form  was  in  terms  of  the  epic  narra 
tive,  as  appears  in  the  theory  of  Fielding  and  in  the 
practice  notably  of  Fielding  and  Scott.  And  this  con- 


Revelation  39 


tinues  to  be  the  conception  of  the  English  novel  down  to 
the  time  of  Henry  James.  With  novelists  like  Meredith 
or  George  Eliot,  to  be  sure,  the  logic  remains  incomplete 
till  the  end  of  the  book,  which  as  a  whole  constitutes  the 
unfolding  of  all  the  implications  of  the  subject.  But  still 
with  them  the  narrative  is  felt  to  be  essentially  an  affair 
of  stages,  of  a  series,  of  progression  in  time.  Having 
learned  to  know  the  characters  of  the  persons  introduced, 
you  are  to  see  how  these  characters  display  themselves 
in  action,  you  follow  them  from  step  to  step  of  their  ful 
filment.  Given  the  situation  in  which  they  find  them 
selves,  you  are  to  follow  the  successive  phases  of  the 
situation  as  it  alters  under  stress  of  the  dramatic  action. 
But  in  the  most  distinctive  work  of  James  the  sense 
of  progress,  of  story,  is  almost  altogether  lost.  You  have 
rather  a  sense  of  being  present  at  the  gradual  unveiling 
of  a  picture,  or  the  gradual  uncovering  of  a  wall-painting 
which  had  been  whitewashed  over  and  is  now  being 
restored  to  view.  The  picture  was  all  there  from  the 
start;  there  is  nothing  new  being  produced;  there  is  no 
progress  in  that  sense.  The  stages  are  merely  those 
by  which  the  exhibitor  or  the  restorer  of  the  picture 
uncovers  now  one,  now  another,  portion  of  the  wall  or 
canvas,  until  finally  the  whole  appears  in  its  intelligible 
completeness.  Or,  once  more  to  vary  the  figure,  it  is  as 
if  a  landscape  were  gradually  coming  into  view  by  the 
drawing  off  of  veil  after  veil  of  mist.  You  become 
aware  first  of  certain  mountain  forms  looming  vaguely 
defined.  Little  by  little  the  mountains  take  on  more 
definite  shape,  and  something  can  be  made  out  of  the 
conformation  of  the  valleys.  And  very  slowly,  at  length, 
comes  out  clear  one  detail  after  another,  until  in  the 
end  you  command  the  whole  prospect,  in  all  its  related 
forms  and  hues. 


40  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

It  is  almost  as  if  Henry  James  had  been  affected  by 
some  of  the  metaphysics  in  which  his  brother  William 
had  so  professional  a  concern.  It  is  as  if  he  had  agreed, 
with  certain  idealist  philosophers,  that  time — as  well  as 
space — is  not  a  reality,  but  a  condition  of  our  conscious 
ness,  a  convenient  instrument  of  thought;  that  things 
do  not  really  happen  one  after  another,  but  that  that  is 
only  the  way  in  which  they  get  themselves  represented  in 
the  mind  of  the  Absolute  Being,  in  whom  there  is  really 
no  variableness  neither  shadow  of  turning.  Among  his 
many  excursions  in  what  are  called  "psychical"  realms  is 
a  curious  little  tale  entitled  "Maud-Evelyn." l  It  has  to  do 
with  an  elderly  couple  who  spend  their  days  making  up  an 
imaginary  history  of  their  lost  daughter.  Never  was 
story  told  at  a  greater  remove  from  the  persons  most 
nearly  concerned.  The  one  who  tells  it  to  "us"  gathered 
in  the  firelight  is  a  certain  Lady  Emma.  But  she  has 
picked  it  up  in  a  series  of  conversations,  extending  over 
many  years,  with  her  proteges  Marmaduke  and  the  girl 
who  loved  him ;  and  she  gives  it  to  us  in  successive  install 
ments  as  she  received  it.  In  the  beginning  the  age  of 
Maud-Evelyn  when  she  died  seems  to  have  been  left 
somewhat  indeterminate,  so  as  to  suit  the  story  her 
parents^  were  to  invent  for  her.  When  they  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Marmaduke,  she  was  represented  by  her 
'parents  as  old  enough  to  have  been  engaged  to  marry  the 
charming  young  man  at  the  time  of  her  death.  And  that 
is  the  first  invention  of  their  pious  backward  imaginings. 
We  next  learn  that  preparations  had  in  fact  all  been  made 
for  her  wedding,  the  bridal  suite  beautifully  furnished 
and  the  presents  laid  out  in  shining  order.  (They  were 
all  really  to  be  seen  at  the  home  of  the  parents ;  for  the 
old  couple  and  Marmaduke  have  spent  their  time  getting 

1  It  appeared  in  "The  Atlantic  Monthly"  in  April,  1900. 


Revelation  41 


together  the  properties  to  suit  their  little  domestic 
drama. )  Eventually  she  is  imagined  to  have  been  actually 
married  to  our  young  man,  so  that  her  parents  may  feel 
that  she  had  fulfilled  her  beautiful  destiny  before  death 
took  her. 

It  is  thus  that  we,  in  the  present,  "assist"  at  the  gradual 
unfolding  of  events  long  past.  "We,"  that  is,  in  the 
present  of  the  story ;  for  the  story  consists  in  the  process 
of  the  unfolding  in  the  present,  not  in  the  events  long 
past.  We  might  take  this  as  an  exaggerated  type  of  the 
method  of  James  in  his  novels  in  which  the  successive 
moments  of  the  present  narrative  impress  one  as  the 
successive  steps  by  which  we  are  made  acquainted  with 
the  set  of  facts  already  constituted.  If  you  are  to  use 
the  word  story  at  all  in  connection  with  these  novels,  the 
story  is  not  what  the  characters  do,  nor  how  the  situation 
works  out.  The  story  is  rather  the  process  by  which  the 
characters  and  the  situation  are  revealed  to  us.  The  last 
chapter  is  not  an  addendum,  tacked  on  to  let  us  know 
what  happened  after  the  wedding.  It  simply  turns  on 
the  light  by  which  the  whole  situation — which  has  perhaps 
long  since  taken  shape  in  the  dark — is  at  last  made  clear. 
And  no  one  can  hope  to  learn  how  such  a  novel  "comes 
out"  by  turning  to  the  last  chapter,  which  is  wholly  un 
intelligible  save  as  the  last  phase  of  the  general  situation, 
— last  not  necessarily  in  time,  but  the  last  to  be  displayed, 
and  as  meaningless  by  itself  as  a  predicate  without  a 
subject. 

This  is  obviously  very  different  from  the  procedure 
of  the  earlier  English  novelists.  Even  in  George  Eliot 
you  know  by  the  time  you  have  read  a  fraction  of  the 
book  who  it  is  you  are  dealing  with.  You  know  Adam 
Bede  and  Hetty  Sorrel  and  Dinah  Morris;  you  know 
Felix  Holt,  and  Gwendolen  Harleth,  and  Dorothea 


42  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

Brooke.  And  you  know  what  they  have  to  cope  with. 
You  aren't  quite  sure  how,  given  such  characters  and 
such  circumstances,  the  equation  will  work  itself  out. 
That  is  the  story.  But  the  elements  are  all  given.  The 
same  is  true  for  Meredith ;  and  so  a  fortiori  for  Thack 
eray  and  Dickens,  for  Scott  and  Fielding. 

There  are  indeed  many  instances  in  James  of  this 
usual  practice.  'The  Bostonians"  is  a  perfect  example 
of  this  method.  And  this  is  probably  one  of  the  chief 
reasons  for  its  being  denied  admission  to  Mr.  James's 
collection  of  stories.  The  book  is  in  three  parts.  In 
the  first  part,  the  situation  is  entirely  set  forth  and  the 
problem  stated.  The  cards  are  all  upon  the  table.  The 
second  and  third  parts  show  us  a  long-drawn-out  playing 
of  the  cards  with  which  we  have  been  made  familiar. 
There  are  some  traces  of  this  method  in  most  of  the 
earlier  novels  of  James,  even  those  deemed  worthy  of 
inclusion  in  the  canon,  such  as  "Roderick  Hudson,"  "The 
American"  and  "The  Tragic  Muse."  "Roderick  Hudson" 
reminds  one  of  "Romola"  in  its  record  of  the  progressive 
disintegration  of  a  man's  character. 

But  in  the  novels  last  mentioned,  and  still  more  in  "The 
Portrait  of  a  Lady"  and  "The  Princess  Casamassima," 
there  is  a  strong  tendency  towards  the  author's  distinctive 
method  of  gradual  revelation.  This  finds  its  application 
in  connection  with  certain  characters  and  groups  of 
characters,  like  Madame  Merle  and  Gilbert  Osmond  in 
"The  Portrait,"  and  Christina  Light  in  "Roderick  Hud 
son."  In  "The  Princess  Casamassima"  we  find  the 
nearest  approach  to  the  technique  of  the  later  period. 
For  here  the  story  might  be  described  as  the  gradual 
unfolding  or  illumination  of  the  character  of  this  woman 
so  appealing  to  the  curious  imagination,  and  our  hero  and 


Revelation  43 


the  rest  of  the  complement  of  characters,  as  essentially 
the  spectators  of  this  woman's  performance. 

It  is,  however,  more  constantly  in  the  twentieth-cen 
tury  series  that  we  have  the  full  display  of  the  method 
towards  which  all  along  the  author  was  feeling  his  way. 
It  is  in  these  latest  fictions  that  one  feels  most  the  want  of 
movement,  of  that  action  which  makes  the  indispensable, 
and  the  most  striking  element,  of  the  ordinary  novel. 
The  sense  at  least  of  such  objective  performance  is 
almost  entirely  lost;  and  incident,  while  it  is  implied  in 
the  situations  presented,  hardly  appears  in  any  state 
more  naked  than  that  of  implication.  The  narrative  is 
taken  up  with  the  gradual  emergence  of  relationships 
and  points  of  view,  of  attitudes  and  designs.  Behind 
these  subjective  facts  lurk  indeed  great  cloudy  masses  of 
the  objective.  But  they  remain  always  in  the  mist,  behind 
the  subjective  facts, — which  seldom,  for  that  matter, 
come  out  themselves  into  the  clear,  sharp  light  of  plain 
statement. 

The  most  amazing  instance  of  this  type  of  story  is 
"The  Sacred  Fount/'  the  first  of  the  novels  of  James 
to  make  its  appearance  in  the  present  century.  It  consists 
of  a  series  of  discussions  at  a  week-end  party  concerning 
the  sentimental  relationships  of  certain  men  and  women 
present.  Not  a  single  incident  is  brought  into  the  narra 
tive  more  important  than  the  intimate  look  of  two  persons 
observed  together  in  an  arbor,  a  gentleman's  appearance 
of  age,  or  the  waxing  and  waning  of  a  lady's  wit.  The 
discussions  are  held  largely  between  "me"  and  "Mrs. 
Briss";  and  the  climax  of  the  story  is  found  simply  in 
the  most  extended  of  our  debates,  late  at  night  in  the 
hospitable  drawing-room.  Each  one  of  us  has  developed 
an  elaborate  hypothesis  to  account  for  certain  social 
phenomena, — phenomena  whose  actuality  may  itself  be 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


brought  in  question,  being  so  much  an  affair  of  the  inter 
pretation  (if  not  the  imaginative  invention)  of  appear 
ances.  "I"  hold  that  the  present  wit  and  competence  of 
Percy  Long  —  heretofore  a  dull  and  unskilful  member  of 
society  —  have  had  to  be  paid  for  by  the  woman  who  loves 
him  ;  and  that  this  accounts  for  the  nervous  manner  and 
peculiar  tactics  of  Mae  Server,  who  has  lost  her  former 
cleverness  and  is  trying  to  conceal  the  fact.  On  the  same 
grounds  I  explain  to  myself  the  blooming  of  Mrs.  Bris- 
senden  —  my  opponent  in  this  debate  —  at  the  expense  of 
"poor  Briss,"  who  daily  presents  an  older  face  to  the 
world.  "Poor  Briss,"  like  Mae  Server,  has  had  to  tap 
the  "sacred  fount,"  the  limited  source  of  vital  energy,  in 
order  to  give  abundance  of  life  to  the  one  he  loves. 
Following  this  clue,  it  appears  to  me  that  Percy  Long  and 
"Mrs.  Briss,"  conscious  of  the  similarity  of  their  position, 
have  formed  a  tacit  league  for  concealment  and  the  de 
fence  of  their  common  interest.  And  again  "poor  Briss" 
and  Mae  Server  seem  to  have  been  drawn  together  by  a 
sense  of  their  community  and  a  common  need  for  sym 
pathy.  It  was  Mrs.  Briss  in  the  first  place  who  helped 
me  to  my  theory.  But  it  is  obvious  that,  when  she  comes 
to  realize  how  far  I  may  carry  its  application,  she  must 
deny  these  facts  and  make  her  own  independent  inter 
pretation  of  the  facts  she  acknowledges.  And  Mrs.  Briss 
is  a  most  ingenious  and  plausible  debater.  So  that  "I"  am 
obliged  to  hurry  away  from  her  neighborhood  in  order  to 
maintain  my  own  view  of  the  facts.  And  so,  in  the  end, 
the  reader  is  left  provided  with  two  complete  sets  of  inter 
pretations  of  a  group  of  more  or  less  hypothetical  rela 
tions.  Nothing  whatever,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  has  come 
to  pass.  But  two  distinct  pictures  of  the  same  subject 
have  been  blocked  out  and  painted  in  before  our  eyes. 
And  one  thing  further  is  to  be  observed.  The  nature 


Revelation  45 


of  the  facts  discussed  by  "me"  and  Mrs.  Brissenden — 
the  personal  bearing  of  them  upon  herself,  not  to  speak 
of  her  friends — makes  it  necessary  that  our  discussion 
should  be  conducted  largely  by  indirection,  in  terms  that 
convey  our  meaning  without  ever  putting  it  in  plain 
English.  Indeed  the  situation,  as  it  immediately  affects 
her,  must  be  altogether  ignored  so  far  as  overt  mention 
goes.  The  same  thing  is  true  for  discussions  between 
"me"  and  Percy  Long,  "me"  and  Mae  Server,  "me"  and 
still  other  persons.  So  that  some  of  the  terms  of  our 
logic  are  like  lines  projected  into  space.  Some  of  our 
weapons  are  perpetually  hidden.  And  we  are  perpetually 
struggling  for  ends,  and  from  motives,  unmentioned  but 
vividly  present  in  the  minds  of  both  parties.  It  must  be 
clear  how  much  all  this  contributes  to  the  "nebulous" 
character  of  the  situations.  It  is  this  that  estranges  so 
many  readers  who  insist  on  the  author's  keeping  them  at 
least  informed,  and  at  once,  of  the  precise  meaning  of 
each  play  in  the  game.  The  feelings  of  one  such  reader 
have  been  amusingly  expressed  by  Mr.  W.  C.  France, 
writing  in  "The  Bookman."2  "Now,"  says  Mr.  France, 
"though  Mr.  James  talks  a  great  deal  in  his  novels  about 
'giving  it'  and  'having  it  straight'  the  thing  you  vul 
garly  want  to  know  is  not  given  you  straight.  You  must 
guess  it  from  that  unemphasized  fact  of  a  later  train, 
that  damning  absence  of  an  overcoat,  .  .  .  that  otherwise 
unaccountable  burst  of  tears.  When  Mr.  James  finesses 
the  essential  incidents,  when  you  are  left  to  gather  the 
presence  of  a  card  of  greater  value  from  the  very  fact 
that  he  plays  low,  he  estranges  the  masculine  attention, 
and  intrigues  the  soul  of  the  feminine  reader." 

If  Mr.  France  has  correctly  distinguished  the  reactions 
of  the  sexes  to  the  stories  of  James,  and  has  given  the 

2  March,  1905. 


46  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

right  explanation  of  the  difference,  then  no  story  should 
more  strongly  repel  the  "masculine"  nor  more  strongly 
attract  the  "feminine"  reader  than  "The  Sacred  Fount." 
And  no  story  can  be  more  conspicuous  for  its  difference 
from  the  ordinary  fictitious  narrative.  It  is  perhaps 
unwise,  however,  to  rest  too  great  a  burden  of  illustration 
upon  this  rather  inferior  work,  which  Mr.  James  did  not 
think  worthy  of  inclusion  in  the  "canon."  More  author 
itative  evidence  may  be  gathered  from  those  later  novels 
of  which  he  so  fully  and  frankly  approves.  And  these 
quite  sufficiently  illustrate  my  description  of  his  method. 
Of  "The  Ambassadors"  we  may  say  that  there  is  no  story 
except  that  a  man  goes  to  Paris  on  an  errand  and  returns 
home  without  being  able  to  carry  it  out.  What  you  are 
really  occupied  with,  in  this  story,  is  the  discovery  of 
Paris ;  or  rather — and  this  is  less  objective  still — the 
discovery  of  what  Paris  means.  When  you  have  made 
out  what  Paris  means,  you  leave  it  there  as  it  was.  And 
the  picture  is  complete.  More  strictly  speaking,  you — 
that  is,  Strether — have  discovered  the  relation  you  bear 
yourself  to  that  order  of  civilization;  and  this  is  the 
pictorial  arrangement  which  is  the  upshot  of  the  long 
process  of  laying  on  oils. 

In  "The  Golden  Bowl"  there  is  a  similar  theme  which 
we  may  describe  as  the  discovery  by  the  Italian  Prince — 
creature  of  an  ancient,  sophisticated  world — of  the  rela 
tion  he  bears  to  the  fresh  and  fine  ideals  of  the  new 
American  world.  Charlotte  and  Maggie  are  the  two 
touchstones  by  which  his  character  and  insight  are  tried 
out.  Charlotte  represents — in  spite  of  her  technical 
Americanism — the  order  of  thought  and  of  social  accom 
plishment  to  which  the  Prince  more  naturally  belongs 
and  which  he  would  more  naturally  appreciate,  Maggie 
proves  the  finer,  and  in  the  end  the  more  potent,  influence ; 


Revelation  47 


and  it  is  by  his  appreciation  of  her,  his  preference  of  her 
to  Charlotte,  that  he  proves  his  fundamental  worth,  his 
kinship  below  the  surface  with  the  finer  and  stronger 
character.  It  is  thus  he  shows  himself — like  the  gilded 
crystal  bowl — of  the  finest  material,  and,  though  cracked, 
not  broken  beyond  repair  and  the  hope  of  permanent 
serviceableness.  But  we  are  very  little  sensible  of  the 
action,  of  the  movement  by  which  this  comes  about.  If 
we  are  sensible  of  a  process,  it  is  the  process  by  which 
Maggie  displays  the  strength  of  her  nature.  Or,  taking 
it  the  other  way  round,  and  so  making  clearer  its  subjec 
tive  character,  it  is  the  process  by  which  the  Prince 
becomes  aware  of  the  strength  of  his  wife's  nature. 
In  the  earlier  half  of  the  book,  which  doubtless  includes 
reference  to  a  larger  number  of  objective  facts,  and  those 
of  greater  bulk  and  extension,  what  we  are  chiefly  called 
upon  to  view  is  the  gradual  emergence  of  the  situation, 
or  the  pattern  of  social  units,  made  up  of  Maggie  and 
her  father,  the  Prince  and  Charlotte.  If  it  is  true  that 
the  situation  comes  into  being  before  our  eyes,  what  we 
are  conscious  of  is  rather  how  we  become  aware  of  the 
situation  already  in  being. 

These  stories  are  not  without  incident.  Only,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  author  has  a  trick  of  referring  to  the  past 
each  new  incident  he  introduces.  We  are  invited  to  look 
back  through  the  consciousness  of  one  of  the  characters 
upon  a  fait  accompli;  or  we  learn  of  the  fact  through 
some  dialogue  in  which  the  characters  discuss  the  bearing 
of  what  has  happened  upon  their  present  situation. 
James  makes  no  use  at  all  of  the  "dramatic"  possibilities 
of  the  death  of  Milly  Theale  in  her  Venetian  palace  or 
of  the  last  meeting  of  Milly  and  Merton.  The  facts  are 
of  importance,  but  they  are  of  importance  merely  as 
forming  the  background  and  conditions  of  the  final  inter- 


48  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

views  between  Merton  and  Kate  Croy, — scenes  in  which 
the  theatrical  is  reduced  to  the  minimum,  and,  while 
actually  making  new  decisions  and  taking  steps  which 
determine  the  course  of  their  lives,  the  characters  give 
the  impression  of  merely  working  out  the  logic  of  what 
has  gone  before.  So  in  the  first  part  of  "The  Golden 
Bowl"  we  are  very  little  concerned  with  the  action 
involved  in  the  love-making  of  Charlotte  and  the  Prince. 
They  talk  as  if  they  were  not  actors  in  a  drama  but 
figures  in  a  pattern.  We  do  not  see  them  doing  this  or 
that ;  we  become  aware  of  the  fact  that  they  have  arrived 
at  such  a  position  in  relation  to  one  another  and  the  other 
characters. 

In  "The  Golden  Bowl"  and  "The  Ambassadors,"  Mr. 
James  has  justified  his  peculiar  method,  at  least  to  the 
lover  of  James.  In  "The  Golden  Bowl"  it  proves  not 
incompatible — strangely  enough,  it  might  seem — with  a 
sense  of  dramatic  struggle.  In  neither  book  does  it  have 
the  effect  of  reducing  the  characters  to  puppets.  The 
motives  and  issues  are  kept  distinct,  if  indeed  not  at  once 
clear  and  fully  understood ;  the  interest  ever  deepens  and 
broadens ;  there  is  a  steadiness  and  continuity  of  progress 
that  carries  the  reader  forward  in  its  strong  sweep.  In 
the  case  of  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove"  there  is  much 
more  doubt  of  the  author's  success.  The  difficulties  of 
the  system  here  come  out  strong.  In  certain  parts  of  the 
story,  not  only  does  nothing  happen ;  we  are  considerably 
puzzled  to  know  what  it  is  we  are  looking  for.  That  is, 
we  are  not  sufficiently  admitted  into  the  consciousness 
of  the  character  most  concerned,  or  it  is  a  consciousness 
too  troubled  for  us  to  follow  with  patience  or  comfort 
its  gradual  enlightenment.  The  indications  are  there,  as 
will  appear  upon  rereading,  but  they  are  often  too  spar 
ingly  supplied  to  let  us  in  to  the  very  mystery  we  are 


Revelation  49 


supposed  to  gape  at.  Of  course,  if  we  like  James  at  all, 
it  must  be  for  the  mystery.  But  we  must  know  what  the 
mystery  is  about.  We  must  know  at  least  in  what  direc 
tion  to  look  for  light. 

But  if  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove"  betrays  the  difficulty 
of  this  system  of  story-writing,  it  none  the  less  convinc 
ingly  displays  the  system.  And  especially  it  reminds  us 
again  how  impossible  it  is  to  take  in  any  of  these  stories 
without  the  light  supplied  by  the  conclusion.  "The  Wings 
of  the  Dove"  presents  itself  to  me  as  primarily  a  study  of 
the  character  of  Kate  Croy.  That  is  the  most  interesting 
mystery  of  the  book.  And  you  certainly  don't  under 
stand  whom  you  are  dealing  with  here,  in  the  case  of 
Kate  and  her  lover,  until  the  very  last  scene  applies  the 
test  by  which  all  that  goes  before  may  be  interpreted. 
Similarly,  in  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  you  do  not  understand 
until  the  last  scene  the  appropriateness  of  this  gilded 
and  broken  crystal  cup  which  has  been  chosen  to  sym 
bolize  the  princely  husband  of  Maggie.  And  something 
similar  is  true  of  all  the  novels  of  the  later  period. 


IV 
SUSPENSE 

Thus  we  are  brought  to  one  of  the  chief  peculiarities 
of  the  method  of  James :  his  way  of  doling  out  his  infor 
mation  in  bits, — just  enough  each  time  to  keep  the  reader 
from  deserting,  never  enough  to  satisfy  or  finally 
enlighten  him  until  the  end.  Something  like  this,  in 
combination  with  other  refinements  of  technique  equally 
suggesting  Henry  James,  is  to  be  found  in  certain  dis 
tinguished  novelists  of  the  present  time  who  may  be 
regarded  as  disciples  of  his.  It  is  enough  to  mention 
Mrs.  Wharton's  "Ethan  Frome"  and  Mr.  Conrad's  "Lord 
Jim."  But  Mrs.  Wharton  and  Mr.  Conrad  have  each  of 
course  a  distinctive  manner  and  a  special  line.  Neither 
of  them  is  in  the  remotest  danger  of  being  accused  of 
slavish  imitation  of  whomsoever;  and  they  have  left 
Henry  James  in  undisputed  possession  of  his  own  field. 
And  the  practice  in  question,  in  just  this  sort  of  novel, 
and  in  such  completeness  of  execution,  remains  so  far 
as  I  know  unique.  In  this  method  the  most  subjective 
of  psychological  novels  are  in  agreement  with  the  most 
objective  of  detective  stories.  And  they  affect  the  reader 
in  much  the  same  way,  keeping  his  curiosity  forever 
aroused  and  never  quite  allayed  until  the  end  of  the 
story.  In  my  own  reading,  there  is  no  fiction  of  any  sort 
in  which  suspense  is  so  constantly  sustained.  You  are 
literally  always  in  suspense,  or  at  least  always  curious, 
always  clamoring  for  more  light. 

It  is  perhaps  some  stretch  of  the  meaning  of  the  word 
suspense  to  apply  it  to  these  effects  of  James.  In  other 


Suspense  51 


novels  we  are  in  suspense  as  to  the  fortunes  of  our 
friends  in  the  story,  their  success  or  failure  in  what  they 
have  undertaken,  the  nature  of  the  dangers  or  difficulties 
they  are  destined  to  meet.  The  question  is,  What  is  going 
to  happen?  In  James,  the  question  is  more  often,  What 
is  it  that  did  happen?  where  are  we  now?  what  did  that 
mean?  what  is  the  significance  of  that  act?  what  new 
light  is  thrown  upon  such  and  such  a  character,  or  upon 
our  situation  ?  Milly  Theale,  finding  herself  in  the  misty 
unfamiliar  realm  of  English  society,  spends  her  days 
and  weeks  in  making  out  now  this,  now  that  form,  at 
first  so  indistinct  in  the  fog,  and  so  by  degrees  the  general 
lay  of  the  land.  In  particular  she  is  engaged  in  the  dis 
covery,  bit  by  bit,  of  the  extensive  personality  of  Kate 
Croy  and  the  relation  she  bears  to  Milly  and  to  Merton 
Densher.  And  then,  through  a  large  part  of  the  book, 
we  follow  the  gradual  process  by  which  Merton  recon 
structs,  from  her  words  and  acts,  the  character  and 
"system"  of  Kate,  and,  in  a  wider  circle,  from  all  that  has 
befallen,  the  position  in  which  he  finds  himself, — the 
state  of  his  own  mind  and  heart.  This  may  not  be 
suspense  in  the  usual  understanding  of  the  term;  but 
there  is  a  continual  appeal  to  our  curiosity,  to  our  concern 
for  the  characters.  And  there  is  more  opportunity  for 
the  author  to  play  upon  this  concern,  or  this  curiosity, 
than  in  any  other  type  of  story, — more  chance  for  him  to 
"play"  us  as  the  angler  plays  his  trout. 

This  method  is  very  much  in  use  in  all  the  later  novels 
and  tales  and  in  many  of  the  earlier  ones.  But  it  finds 
perhaps  its  completest  employment  in  "The  Ambassa 
dors."  Nowhere  has  the  author  taken  greater  pains  in 
turning  on  his  light  by  slow  degrees.  In  the  first  of 
the  twelve  books,  prescribed  by  the  twelve  installments 
in  a  magazine,  we  do  not  even  arrive  at  the  Paris  which 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


is  to  be,  we  may  say,  the  special  subject  of  the  study,  nor 
do  we  make  the  acquaintance  of  any  of  the  major 
characters  other  than  the  ever  present  observer  and  am 
bassador  himself.  The  contrast  between  Maria  Gostrey 
and  Waymarsh,  seen  in  the  vestibule  of  England,  the 
"rows"  of  Chester,  is  all  the  hint  we  are  offered  of  that 
"Europe"  which  is  the  general  category  under  which 
"Paris"  is  included  as  the  particular  instance.  It  is  not 
till  the  end  of  the  third  book,  and  after  careful  prepara 
tion,  that  the  young  hero  of  the  story  is  allowed  to  make 
his  entry,  with  all  the  readjustments  which  his  appearance 
requires  in  the  views  of  Strether.  In  the  next  book, 
owing  to  the  very  favorable  impression  made  by  Chad, 
the  attention  of  Strether  is  bent  chiefly  upon  the  woman 
who  may  be  thought  to  have  had  a  hand  in  turning  out 
so  fine  a  man.  Strether  now  envisages  the  possibility 
that  this  is  a  "virtuous  attachment,"  and  begins  to  specu 
late  on  whether  it  is  the  mother  or  the  daughter  who  is 
the  object  of  an  attachment  as  yet  so  little  defined. 
Neither  mother  nor  daughter  enters  until  the  fifth  book, 
and  it  is  not  till  the  latter  part  of  this  book  that  Strether 
learns  from  Maria  the  outlines  of  the  history  of  Madame 
de  Vionnet.  Chad's  declaration  that  it  is  Madame  de 
Vionnet  and  not  her  daughter  whose  friendship  keeps  him 
in  Paris  comes  now  to  require  the  construction  of  some 
new  hypothesis  or  interpretation.  In  the  two  following 
books  we  observe  the  process  by  which  Strether  so  falls 
under  the  influence  of  the  French  lady  as  to  make  himself 
her  champion,  and  becomes  so  absolute  a  convert  to 
"Paris"  as  to  grow  sceptical  of  Woollett. 

Meanwhile  we  have  received  from  time  to  time  some 
addition  to  our  knowledge  of  the  formidable  Mrs.  New- 
some  of  Woollett,  present  only  in  the  conscience  of 
Strether.  Light  upon  the  American  point  of  view  begins 


Suspense 


to  grow  with  the  arrival  of  the  Pococks.  We  want  to 
know  whether  Sarah  or  Jim  will  see,  as  Strether  has  seen, 
the  "values"  of  Chad  in  his  later  -phase.  We  watch  for 
the  Woollett  reaction.  Before  the  formal  announcement 
of  this  reaction  by  Mrs.  Pocock,  two  new  facts  are 
"released"  and  call  for  assimilation.  Mamie  is  to  be 
an  exception  to  the  blindness  of  Woollett;  she  is  to  be 
on  Strether's  side.  The  other  fact  to  be  digested  is  the 
engagement  of  Jeanne  to  some  gentleman  we  have  not 
met.  This  announcement,  made  at  this  time  like  a  move 
in  a  game,  gives  Strether  the  sense  of  depths  in  the 
situation  not  yet  sounded  by  his  imagination,  and  de 
mands  more  extended  discussions  with  Maria.  Now 
follows  Sarah  Pocock's  outburst  of  indignation  against 
Strether  for  his  friendly  relations  with  Madame  de 
Vionnet,  which  she  declares  to  be  "an  outrage  to  women 
like  us"  and  especially  an  insult  to  Mrs.  Newsome.  "She 
has  confided  to  my  judgment  and  my  tenderness,"  says 
her  daughter,  reproducing  the  great  lady's  very  words, 
"the  expression  of  her  personal  sense  of  everything  and 
the  assertion  of  her  personal  dignity."  In  this  interview 
we  have  the  strongest  light  thus  far  vouchsafed  on  the 
personality  of  Mrs.  Newsome ;  but  it  takes  the  comment  \ 
of  Maria  Gostrey  in  the  next  book  to  bring  out  still 
more  her  quality  as  Strether  himself  has  been  brought  to 
feel  it.  She  has  no  imagination — that  is  the  reason  she 
can  make  herself  felt  so  effectively.  She  has  even,  says 
Maria,  imagined  stupidly  and  meanly;  or,  what  comes 
to  the  same  thing,  intensely  and  ignorantly. 

The  final  chapters  of  this  eleventh  book  furnish  the 
last  and — objectively — the  most  substantial  fact  necessary 
for  Strether  to  determine  his  attitude  in  the  whole  affair, 
— the  fact  that  this  attachment  of  Chad  and  Madame  de 
Vionnet  is  not  a  "virtuous"  attachment  after  all.  But 


54  The  Method  of  Henry  James 


it  requires  the  five  chapters  of  the  twelfth  book  to  bring 
out  completely  the  final  attitude  of  Str ether, — how,  as 
Maria  perceives,  the  shock  of  knowledge  has  come  with 
out  bringing  him  any  nearer  to  Mrs.  Newsome  or  making 
him  any  less  ardent  a  champion  of  the  French  woman, 
and  how,  for  all  that,  he  will  not  make  his  home  in  Paris, 
not  being — like  Maria — "in  harmony  with  what  sur 
rounds  him"  there. 

Thus  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  story,  we  are 
occupied  with  just  finding  out  what  it  is  the  author  is 
hiding  from  us.  And  our  eagerness  is  made  no  less  keen  by 
the  fact  that  in  the  story  there  are  always  several  charac 
ters  besieging  every  possible  source  of  information  and 
that  it  is  through  their  mouths  our  curiosity  voices  itself. 
But  the  author  is  never  to  be  shaken  from  his  attitude 
of  serene  imperturbability.  He  is  never  to  be  persuaded 
to  turn  on  more  light  than  he  thinks  we  absolutely  need 
at  the  moment.  He  is  like  some  public  personage  con 
stantly  beset  by  a  swarm  of  reporters  hungry  for  a  bit  of 
news,  who  does  "release,"  bit  by  bit,  such  news  as  he 
sees  fit.  The  public  personage  sees  fit  to  let  the  public 
have  whatever  information,  real  or  imaginary,  will  re 
dound  to  the  credit  of  his  party  or  will  tend  to  build 
up  a  particular  reputation  for  himself.  The  author  sees 
fit  to  let  his  reader  have  whatever  item  will,  at  the 
moment,  best  serve  in  bringing  out  the  "subject"  with 
which  he  is  engaged, — only  making  sure  not  to  let  him 
have  more  than  he  can  well  manage  at  one  time. 

This  extreme  jealousy  of  his  material  is  not  to  be 
attributed  wholly,  or  even  principally,  to  a  mischievous 
love  of  teasing  the  reader, — however  legitimate  a  motive 
this  may  be  in  a  writer  of  fiction.  More  important  is  his 
concern  that  the  reader  may  not  have  too  big  a  helping. 
He  wishes  him  to  master  one  position  thoroughly  before 


Suspense  55 


be  proceeds  to  the  next.  This  both  on  account  of  the 
next  position,  which  will  be  more  securely  seized  if  the 
first  position  is  solidly  occupied,  and  more  especially  on 
account  of  the  earlier  position  itself.  James  wishes  to 
express  the  last  drop  of  human  significance  from  what 
ever  circumstance  he  puts  into  his  press.  This  is  required 
by  that  law  of  economy  that  he  so  cheerfully  obeys.  Any 
less  deliberate  rate  of  progress  would  make  it  impossible 
to  "work"  his  story,  as  Mr.  James  would  say  himself, 
"for  all  it  is  worth." 


V 
POINT  OF  VIEW 

The  stories  of  Henry  James  are  records  of  seeing 
rather  than  of  doing.  That  we  have  seen  to  be,  at  any 
rate,  the  general  impression  of  the  reader.  The  process 
of  the  story  is  always  more  or  less  what  Mr.  James  him 
self  calls  in  one  case  a  "process  of  vision."  Of  "The 
Ambassadors"  he  says,  referring  to  the  enlightenment  of 
the  main  character,  "The  business  of  my  tale  and  the 
march  of  my  action,  not  to  say  the  precious  moral  of 
everything,  is  just  my  demonstration  of  this  process  of 
vision."1  Of  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton"  he  says,  referring 
to  the  central  character,  Fleda  Vetch,  "The  progress  and 
march  of  my  tale  became  and  remained  that  of  her  under 
standing."2  In  a  story  so  conceived,  a  matter  of  prime 
importance  must  naturally  be  the  pQinjL_jiL-yJ£w_irom 
the  sniirreLj3f-miorinatioji-QiU:he 


medium  through.  which,  what  is  to  he  -.seeruisL  conveyed 
tCL_ihfi.  reader,  There  is  no  matter  in  which  James  has 
shown  greater  care  for  technique. 

Mr.  James  is  seldom  or  never,  in  his  later  work,  the 
"omniscient  author."  He  has  a  great  scorn  for  this 
slovenly  way  of  telling  a  story.  It  is  only  in  his  earlier 
work  that  he  sometimes  allows  himself  to  step  in  and 
give  special  information  to  the  reader,  —  information 
which  he  could  not  have  had  from  the  person  or  persons 
who  are  for  the  moment  most  concerned.  Quite  as  little 

1  Vol.  XXI,  p.  vi. 

2  Vol.  X,  p.  xiii. 


Point  of  View  57 


does  he  employ  the  device  of  having  the  story  told  in 
the  first  person  by  the  leading  character,  with  its  great 
initial  sacrifice  of  plausibility.  His  austere  muse  will 
not  consent  to  that  "terrible  fluidity  of  self-revelation" 
that  characterizes  narratives  like  "Gil  Bias"  and  "David 
Copperfield."3 

This  matter  of  the  point  of  view  is  a  most  complex 
and  difficult  one,  and  the  practice  of  story-tellers  is  mani 
fold.  It  would  be  impossible  to  give  a  brief  summary 
of  the  common  usage,  even  if  one  had  made  a  sufficiently 
careful  survey  of  the  field  to  feel  certain  of  all  the  facts. 
But  I  can  give  some  illustration  of  methods  carefully 
avoided  by  James.  And  it  will  be  interesting  to  take 
examples  from  the  work  of  an  earlier  master  to  whom 
James  owes  a  considerable  debt.4 

'  Hawthorne,  in  "The  Marble  Faun,"  is  quite  innocent 
of  the  scruples  that  so  constantly  exercise  the  conscience 
of  the  later  American  novelist.  Not  only  does  he  indulge 
in  the  most  extended  descriptions  and  disquisitions,  in 
which  no  pretense  is  made  of  following  the  discoveries 
and  impressions  of  the  characters;  but  he  often  rends 
abruptly  the  tissue  of  their  impressions  to  throw  in  some 
observation  of  his  own.  In  scene  after  scene,  again,  the 
author  starts  out  telling  his  story  from  the  point  of  view 
of  one  of  the  characters,  recording  simply  what  may  be 
taken  in  by  him,  only  to  shift  suddenly  for  a  moment  or 
for  good  to  the  point  of  view  of  another.  In  the  scene 
of  "The  Marble  Saloon,"  it  is  Kenyon  who  is  first  shown 
us  observing  the  behavior  and  listening  to  the  words  of 
Miriam.  It  was  he  who  watched  for  her  arrival,  he  to 
whom  "the  feebleness  of  her  step  was  apparent,"  who 

3  See  Vol.  XXI,  pp.  xvii-xix.  *  Wi 

4  Equally  striking  illustrations  may  be  found  in  work  so  recent 
as  that  of  Mr.  Hardy. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


"was  startled  to  perceive"  such  an  impulse  of  hers,  who 
"could  not  but  marvel"  at  such  another.  But  we  are  not 
so  sure  of  the  point  of  view  when  we  read,  "She  blushed, 
and  turned  away  her  eyes,  knowing  that  there  was  more 
surprise  and  joy  in  their  dewy  glances,  than  any  man  save 
one  ought  to  detect  there/'  And  in  the  following  para 
graph,  there  is  an  indubitable  and  disconcerting  shift  of 
the  point  of  view.  "Kenyon  could  not  but  marvel  at  the 
subjection  into  which  this  proud  and  self-dependent 
woman  had  wilfully  flung  herself,  hanging  her  life  upon 
the  chance  of  an  angry  or  favorable  regard  from  a  person 
who,  a  little  while  before,  had  seemed  the  plaything  of  a 
moment.  But,  in  Miriam's  eyes,  Donatello  was  always, 
thenceforth,  invested  with  the  tragic  dignity  of  their  hour 
of  crime;  and,  furthermore,  the  keen  and  deep  insight 
with  which  her  love  endowed  her  [here  we  encounter 
the  "omniscient  author"  in  person]  enabled  her  to  know 
him  far  better  than  he  could  be  known  by  ordinary  obser 
vation."  It  is  as  if,  in  a  dance,  the  spotlight,  which  has 
been  resting  long  on  the  man,  should  be  shifted  for  one 
intense  moment  to  the  figure  of  his  companion.  In  the 
scene  of  "The  Bronze  Pontiff's  Benediction,"  the  spot 
light  is  constantly  shifting  from  one  to  another  of  the 
three  performers,  then  to  the  "mob"  of  onlookers,  to  rest 
finally,  for  the  curtain,  on  all  three  performers  in  a  group. 
In  some  cases  the  master  of  the  puppets  intrudes  him 
self  with  the  most  amazing  disregard  for  illusion,  the 
highest  impudence,  as  it  would  be  judged  by  more  modern 
showmen.  In  the  chapter  entitled  "Reminiscences  of 
Miriam,"  we  have  been  following  the  track  of  Hilda's 
thoughts.  It  has  been  difficult  to  distinguish  just  what 
are  Hilda's  own  reflections  and  what  the  interpretations 
and  explanations  of  the  author.  But  there  is  no  doubt 
as  to  the  line  of  distinction  at  this  point  :  "Recurring  to 


Point  of  View  59 


the  delinquencies  of  which  she  fancied  (we  say  'fancied' 
because  we  do  not  unhesitatingly  adopt  Hilda's  present 
view,  but  rather  suppose  her  misled  by  her  feelings) — 
of  which  she  fancied  herself  guilty  towards  her  friend, 
she  suddenly  remembered  a  sealed  packet  that  Miriam 
had  confided  to  her."  Here  the  author  marks  the  dis 
tinction  between  his  own  and  his  character's  view  of  the 
moral  facts.  In  a  later  chapter,  "A  Frolic  of  the  Car 
nival,"  we  see  him  in  the  act  of  dangling  before  us  his 
knowledge  of  certain  material  facts  upon  which  he  is 
not  yet  ready  to  enlighten  us.  It  is  at  the  moment  of 
Hilda's  appearance  in  the  Englishman's  balcony  during 
the  carnival,  after  her  period  of  mysterious  invisibility, 
"Whence  she  had  come,"  says  the  author,  "or  where  she 
had  been  hidden,  during  this  mysterious  interval,  we  can 
but  imperfectly  surmise,  and  do  not  mean,  at  present,  to 
make  it  a  matter  of  formal  explanation  with  the  reader. 
It  is  better,  perhaps,  to  fancy  that  she  had  been  snatched 
away  to  a  land  of  picture;  that  she  had  been  straying 
with  Claude  in  the  golden  light  which  he  used  to  shed 
over  his  landscapes,  but  which  he  could  never  have  beheld 
with  his  waking  eyes,"  etc.,  etc.  Thus  does  the  author 
flout  his  patient  reader,  frankly  acknowledging  his  sub 
stantial  obligation  and  offering  to  pay  it  in  the  airy  coin 
of  poesy. 

Such  methods  were  suitable,  it  may  be,  to  the  easy 
going  "romance  of  Monte  Beni,"  a  tissue  of  poetic 
fancies,  in  which  the  characters  are  but  vague  symbols 
of  moral  truth,  and  in  which,  as  he  tells  us  himself,  the 
last  thing  the  author  wishes  to  create  is  an  illusion  of 
"reality."  They  would  not  do  at  all  for  the  close- woven 
psychological  tissue  of  Henry  James.  Considering  the 
sort  of  effect  at  which  he  aimed,  he  could  not  afford  to 
risk  the  leakage  of  illusion^  (to  use  a  favorite  figure  of  !' 

I  LI.,.. •  .,,      .  J>' 


60  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

his  own)  ;  he  could  not  afford  to  risk  that  blurring  of 
effect  caused  by  the  arbitrary  change  of  focus.  He  must 
take  greater  pains  to  conceal  his  art,  and  must  never  allow 
himself  to  be  caught  in  the  act  of  composing  his  stage 
effects.  The  realist,  and  above  all  the  psychologist,  in 
fiction  has  less  margin  of  profit,  as  we  may  say  in  the 
language  of  the  market,  and  is  obliged  to  figure  closer 
in  regard  to  "overhead  costs."  He  comes — at  least  Mr. 
James  had  come — to  take  great  pride  in  his  ingenuities  of 
economy.  In  the  choice  and  maintenance  of  a  point  of 
viewTTie  is  seeking  a  steady  consistency  of  effect,  the 
intensity  and  concentration  that  come  of  an  exact  center 
ing  of  attention  upon  the  chosen  plot  of  consciousness. 
jln  the  preface  to  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove,"  he  says, 
"There  is  no  economy  of  treatment  without  an  adopted, 
a  related  point  of  view,  and  though  I  understand,  under 
certain  degrees  of  pressure,  a  represented  community  of 
vision  between  several  parties  to  the  action  when  it  makes 
for  concentration,  I  understand  no  breaking  up  of  the 
register,  no  sacrifice  of  the  recording  consistency,  that 
doesn't  rather  scatter  and  weaken."5 

In  some  cases  James  chose  to  present  his  scene  in  a 
highly  objective  manner,  as  it  would  be  followed  by  an 
imaginary  spectator.  In  "The  Outcry"  and  "The  Awk 
ward  Age"  he  will  hardly  record  the  slightest  subjective 
reaction  of  one  of  his  characters  without  some  reference 
to  this  postulated  observer.  "Hugh  might  at  this  moment 
have  shown  to  an  initiated  eye  as  fairly  elated."6  "Un 
mistakably — for  us  at  least — our  young  man  was  gaining 
\  time."7  The  great  thing  is  not  to  go  outside  the  present 
scene  for  enlightenment.  In  "The  Awkward  Age,"  he 

5  Vol.  XIX,  p.  xvi. 

6  "The  Outcry,"  p.  143;  compare  also  pp.  177,  211,  227. 

7  Id.,  p.  85. 


Point  of  View  61 


tells  us,  he  wished  always  "to  make  the  presented  occasion 
tell  all  its  story  itself,  remain  shut  up  in  its  own  presence  \ 
and  yet  on  that  patch  of  staked-out  ground  become 
thoroughly  interesting  and  remain  thoroughly  clear."8 
He  follows  the  same  plan  in  'The  Outcry."  We  read  of  a 
certain  lady  that  she  had  a  certain  gentleman's  "an 
nounced  name  ringing  in  her  ears — to  some  effect  that  we 
are  as  yet  not  qualified  to  discern."9  Such  is  the  tone 
the  author  assumes  to  put  in  his  place  any  reader  under 
taking  to  see  more  than  is  allowed  by  the  conditions  of 
the  exhibition. 

But  this  is  not  his  happiest  way  of  securing  consistency 
in  the  point  of  view.  His  happiest  way  is  one  which', 
admits  our  following  more  closely  the  thoughts  and  feel 
ings  of  his  characters.  "Again  and  again,  on  review,"  he 
writes  in  the  preface  to  the  last  novel  of  the  series,  "the 
shorter  things  in  especial  that  I  have  gathered  into  this 
Series  have  ranged  themselves  not  as  my  own  impersonal 
account  of  the  affair  in  hand,  but  as  my  account  of  some 
body's  impression  of  it — the  terms  of  this  person's  access 
to  it  and  estimate  of  it  contributing  thus  by  some  fine 
little  law  to  intensification  of  interest."10  The  great  charm 
of  such  a  narrative  as  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton"  resides 
in  that  intimacy  with  the  mind  of  Fleda,  that  sense  of 
identification  with  her  feeling  and  thought,  in  all  their 
intensity,  in  all  their  delicate  shift  and  play,  that  comes  of 
this  consistency  in  the  point  of  view.  James  speaks  often 
in  his  prefaces  of  his  desire  to  get  himself  and  his  reader 
"down  into  the  arena" — to  "live,  breathe,  converse  with 
the  persons  engaged  in  the  struggle  that  provides  for  the 

8  Vol.  IX,  pp.  xvii-xviii. 

9  P.  39. 

10  Vol.  XXIII,  p.  v. 


62  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

others  in  the  circling  tiers  the  entertainment  of  the 
game."11 

The  most  remarkable  feat  of  Henry  James  in  this 
order  is  the  record  of  "What  Maisie  Knew,"  in  which 
he  chose  deliberately  for  his  "register  of  impressions" 
the  "small  expanding  consciousness"  of  a  little  girl.  The 
story  deals  with  vulgar  facts  involving  passions  and 
relations  far  beyond  the  understanding  of  any  little  girl, 
however  clever,  let  alone  so  innocent  and  "nice"  an  under 
standing  as  this  one.  And  yet  the  whole  history  is  given 
without  appeal  to  any  other  source  of  information  than 
the  natural  observation  of  the  little  girl.  This  was  the 
challenge  of  the  subject  to  the  artistic  temper  of  Henry 
James.  Given  such  an  observer,  he  tells  us  in  the  preface, 
the  design  "would  be  to  make  and  keep  her  so  limited  con 
sciousness  the  very  field  of  my  picture  while  at  the  same 
time  guarding  with  care  the  integrity  of  the  objects 
represented."  As  she  wouldn't  understand  much  that 
occurred,  the  author  was  obliged  to  "stretch  the  matter 
to  what  his  wondering  witness  materially  and  inevitably 
saw."  He  determined  on  "giving  it  all,  the  whole  situa 
tion  surrounding  her,  but  .  .  .  giving  it  only  through 
the  occasions  and  connexions  of  her  proximity  and  her 
attention.  .  .  .  This  would  be,  to  begin  with,  a  plan  of 
absolutely  definite  and  measureable  application — that  in 
itself  always  a  mark  of  beauty."12 

Not  merely  the  plan  of  "measurable  application,"  but 
the  economy  of  means  involved  in  this  particular  plan 
was  prized  by  Mr.  James  as  "in  itself  always  a  mark  of 
beauty."  Over  and  over  again  he  lets  us  know  how 
much  he  loves  to  pack  his  material  into  the  smallest  possi 
ble  compass,  to  make  one  stroke  do  duty  for  several,  to 

11  Vol.  XXIII,  p.  vi. 

12  Vol.  XI,  pp.  ix-x. 


Point  of  View  63 


secure  that  intensification  of  effect  which  comes  of  the 
double  functioning  of  any  given  element  in  the  pictorial 
composition.  Such  economies  are  to  be  secured  by 
various  means,  but  none  are  more  gratifying  than  those 
which  flow  from  an  ingenious  choice  of  a  point  of  view. 
Mr.  James  notes  with  no  little  complacency  the  way  in 
which,  in  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  the  Princess,  in  addition 
to  playing  her  part  in  the  drama  as  required,  serves  as 
interpreter  to  us.  Thus  "the  Princess  ...  in  addition 
to  feeling  everything  she  has  to,  and  to  playing  her  part 
just  in  that  proportion,  duplicates  .  .  .  her  value  and 
becomes  a  compositional  resource  ...  as  well  as  a  value 
intrinsic."13  As  usual  Mr.  James  reserves  his  extremest 
expressions  of  satisfaction  for  the  technique  of  "The 
Ambassadors,"  of  which  the  "major  propriety,"  the  great 
"compositional  law"  was  "that  of  employing  but  one 
centre  and  keeping  it  all  within  my  hero's  consciousness." 
There  were  to  be  plenty  of  other  people  with  their  mo 
tives  and  interests.  "But  Strether's  sense  of  these  things, 
and  Strether's  only,  should  avail  me  for  showing  them ; 
I  should  know  them  but  through  his  more  or  less  groping 
knowledge  of  them,  since  his  very  gropings  would  figure 
among  his  most  interesting  motions,  and  a  full  observance 
of  the  rich  rigour  I  speak  of  would  give  me  more  of  the 
effect  I  should  be  most  'after'  than  all  other  possible 
observances  together.  It  would  give  me  a  large  unity, 
and  that  in  turn  would  crown  me  with  the  grace  to  which 
the  enlightened  story-teller  will  at  any  time,  for  his 
interest,  sacrifice  if  need  be  all  other  graces  whatever. 
I  refer  of  course  to  the  grace  of  intensity."14 

Now  the  most  notable  peculiarity  of  the  stories  of 
Henry  James — regarding  conception  rather  than  execu- 

13  Vol.  XXIII,  p.  vii. 

14  Vol.  XXI,  p.  xv. 


64  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

tion — is  the  refined,  not  to  say  fine-drawn  interpretation 
of  character,  of  motive  and  of  personal  relations.  And 
if  the  situations  and  the  reactions  of  character  are  to 
be  conveyed  to  the  reader  exclusively  through  the  con 
sciousness  of  persons  in  the  story,  the  persons  thus  serv 
ing  as  interpreters  must  necessarily  be  persons  of  fine 
discrimination,  of  keen  penetration,  of  delicate  sensibility. 
And  this  is,  I  think,  almost  invariably  true.15 

As  early  as  the  time  of  "Roderick  Hudson"  James  had 
created  such  an  interpreter  in  the  person  of  Rowland 
Mallet.  As  he  says  himself,  "The  centre  of  interest 
throughout  'Roderick'  is  in  Rowland  Mallet's  conscious 
ness,  and  the  drama  is  the  very  drama  of  that  conscious 
ness — which  I  had  of  course  to  make  sufficiently  acute 
in  order  to  enable  it,  like  a  set  and  lighted  scene,  to  hold 
the  play.  ...  It  had,  naturally  .  .  .  not  to  be  too  acute 
— which  would  have  disconnected  it  and  made  it  super 
human:  the  beautiful  little  problem  was  to  keep  it  con 
nected,  connected  intimately,  with  the  general  human 
exposure  .  .  .  and  yet  to  endow  it  with  such  intelligence 
that  the  appearances  reflected  in  it,  and  constituting  to 
gether  there  the  situation  and  the  'story/  should  become 
by  that  fact  intelligible."16 

But  our  best  instances  of  this  intelligent  interpreter 
from  within  are  to  be  found  in  the  leading  characters 
of  the  later  stories.  Every  reader  of  James  has  been 
impressed — some  have  been  bored — by  the  constancy 
with  which  the  characters  bestow  upon  one  another  the 
epithets  "wonderful,"  "beautiful,"  "complete,"  "splen- 

15  Even  Maisie  is  all  of  this,  wanting  only  in  maturity  and 
experience  to  make  her  a  satisfactory  recorder  of  the  objective  as 
well  as  the  subjective  facts,  that  is  of  the  incidents  themselves 
as  well  as  her  youthful  impressions  of  them. 

16  Vol.  I,  p.  xvii. 


Point  of  View 


did,"  and  others  to  the  same  effect.  Probably  the  person 
most  lavishly  praised  for  "wonderful"  is  Lambert 
Strether,  and  it  is  no  less  competent  a  judge  than  Maria 
Gostrey  who  thus  passes  judgment  upon  his  insight  and 
discrimination.  It  was  for  similar  gifts  that  Mrs.  Gereth 
made  choice  of  Fleda  Vetch  for  her  friend  and  the 
depositary  of  the  precious  Spoils.  Fleda  appears  from 
the  beginning  to  be  as  well  endowed  as  Mrs.  Gereth  with 
esthetic  and  practical  intelligence;  and  we  are  made  to 
feel  before  the  end  how  much  she  surpasses  her  patron 
in  moral  and  spiritual  fineness.  There  is  no  character 
in  fiction  upon  whose  spiritual  intelligence  was  put  a 
harder  and  more  unrelenting  strain ;  and  it  is  largely  the 
success  with  which  she  supported  this  strain  that  gives 
her  little  story  so  high  a  place  among  all  the  novels  of 
James.  Her  creator  is  fully  conscious  of  all  that  is 
involved  in  this  fact  on  the  technical  side,  of  the  technical 
problem  confronting  the  artist  who  undertakes  such  a 
subject,  and  the  rewards  higher  than  technical  crowning 
his  success.  "Once  more,"  in  reviewing  this  work  he 
perceives  "that  a  subject  so  lighted,  a  subject  residing  in 
somebody's  excited  and  concentrated  feeling  about  some 
thing  .  .  .  has  more  beauty  to  give  out  than  under  any 
other  style  of  pressure.  [Such  is  his  own  somewhat 
confused  combination  of  figures.]  One  is  confronted 
obviously  thus  with  the  question  of  the  importances ;  with 
that  in  particular,  no  doubt,  of  the  weight  of  intelligent 
consciousness,  consciousness  of  the  whole,  or  of  some 
thing  ominously  like  it,  that  one  may  decently  permit  a 
represented  figure  to  appear  to  throw.  .  .  .  This  intelli 
gence,  an  honorable  amount  of  it,  on  the  part  of  the 
person  to  whom  one  most  invites  attention,  has  but  to  play 
with  sufficient  freedom  and  ease,  or  call  it  with  the  right 
grace,  to  guarantee  us  that  quantum  of  the  impression  of 


66  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

beauty  which  is  the  most  fixed  of  the  possible  advantages 
of  our  producible  effect.  It  may  fail,  as  a  positive  pres 
ence,  on  other  sides  and  in  other  connexions ;  but  more  or 
less  of  the  treasure  is  stored  safe  from  the  moment  such 
a  quality  of  inward  life  is  distilled,  or  in  other  words  from 
the  moment  so  fine  an  interpretation  and  criticism  as  that 
of  Fleda  Vetch's  [sic] — to  cite  the  present  case — is 
applied  without  waste  to  the  surrounding  tangle."17 

In  some  of  his  stories  in  which  he  has  provided  several 
such  intelligences,  or  at  any  rate  several  minds  sufficiently 
suited  to  act  as  "registers,"  James  has  experimented  with 
the  device  of  alternating  points  of  view.  This  method 
was  adopted  in  the  more  objective  narrative  of  "The 
Tragic  Muse,"  in  which  not  too  much  is  expected  of  Nick 
Dormer  and  Peter  Sherringham  in  the  matter  of  inter 
pretation.  More  distinctive  is  the  work  in  "The  Wings 
'*  of  the  Dove,"  in  which  if  the  story  must  get  itself  told 
from  at  least  three  different  points  of  view — those  of 
Kate,  of  Milly  and  of  Merton — it  is  in  point  of  fact  the 
mental  topography  of  these  characters  that  we  are  most 
inteTestedln  exploringT^Ln  any  case  the  situation  seemed 
to  the  author  one  best  exhibited  now  from  one  side  and 
now  from  another;  and  this  made  a  technical  problem 
strongly  appealing  to  the  artist  in  him.  "There  was  the 
'fun*  ...  of  establishing  one's  successive  centres — of 
fixing  them  so  exactly  that  the  portions  of  the  subject 
commanded  by  them  as  by  happy  points  of  view,  and 
accordingly  treated  from  them,  would  constitute,  so  to 
speak,  sufficiently  solid  blocks  of  wrought  material, 
squared  to  the  sharp  edge,  as  to  have  weight  and  mass 
and  carrying  power ;  to  make  for  construction,  that  is,  to 
conduce  to  effect  and  to  provide  for  beauty.  Such  a 
block,  obviously,  is  the  whole  preliminary  presentation 

17  Vol.  X,  pp.  xiii-xiv. 


Point  of  View 


of  Kate  Croy  which,  from  the  first,  I  recall,  absolutely 
declined  to  enact  itself  save  in  terms  of  amplitude."18 
Mr.  James   speaks,   changing  the  figure   again,   of   his 
instinct  in  this  case  for  the  "indirect  presentation  of  his      / 
mainjmage"  (that  is,  of  Milly)  ;  this  aproceeds~obviously 
from  her  painter's  tenderness  of  imagination  about  her, 
which  reduces  him  to  watching  her,  as  it  were,  through      ; 
the   successive   windows    of    other   people's    interest   in 
her."19 

It  is  clear  that  we  have  nothing  here  in  common  with 
that  arbitrary  and  unconsidered  shift  of  point  of  view 
within  the  chapter,  within  the  paragraph,  that  visible 
manipulation  of  the  puppets  from  without,  which  is  so 
great  a  menace  to  illusion  and  intimacy.  It  is  equally  y 
clear,  however,  how  much  the  author  pays,  in  this  method, 
for  the  privilege  of  seeing  the  situation  from  more  sides  * 
than  one.  He  pays  with  the  loss  of  that  growing  intensity, 
that  larger  consistency,  which  derive  from  uninterrupted 
continuity  of  the  same  consciojis  observation  such  as  we 
have  in  "Poynton,"  in  "Maisie,"  in  "The  Ambassadors," 
and — to  name  one  instance  from  the  earlier  period — in 
"Roderick  Hudson."  At  any  rate,  one  gets  from  "The 
Dove"  much  less  of  a  sense  of  unity  and  distinctness,,  in 
the  whole,  and  in  many  of  the  parts,  than  from  "Poynton" 
or  "The  Ambassadors,"  or,  for  that  matter,  from  "The 
Golden  Bowl."  "The  Golden  Bowl"  lies,  in  method, 
between  "The  Ambassadors"  and  "The  Dove" ;  since  here 
there  is  a  change  in  point  of  view,  but  just  the  one  change, 
between  the  first  and  second  parts  of  the  story.  "The 
whole  thing,"  Mr.  James  points  out  in  the  preface, 
"remains  subject  to  the  register,  ever  so  closely  kept, 
of  the  consciousness  of  but  two  of  the  characters.  The 

"  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  xii-xiii. 
19  Id.,  p.  xxii. 


68  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

Prince,  in  the  first  half  of  the  book,  virtually  sees  and 
knows  and  makes  out,  virtually  represents  to  himself 
everything  that  concerns  us.  .  •  .  .  The  function  of  the 
Princess,  in  the  remainder,  matches  exactly  with  his ; 
the  register  of  her  consciousness  is  as  closely  kept."20 
It  may  well  be  partly  this  large  division,  in  which  one 
entire  half  of  the  story  is  given  to  the  development  of  the 
situation  in  each  of  these  minds,  and  in  which  the  narra 
tive  does  not  keep  making  a  fresh  start,  as  in  "The  Dove," 
that  accounts  for  the  greater  force  and  distinctness  of 
effect  in  "The  Golden  Bowl." 

Readers  well  acquainted  with  James's  shorter  stories 
will  meantime  have  been  wondering  at  my  failure  to 
mention  another  device  employed  in  so  many  of  his  tales. 
I  mean  the  introduction  of  some  observer  not  concerned 
personally,  or  but  slightly  concerned,  in  the  incidents 
recorded.  This  person  is  not,  like  Strether,  an  important 
actor ;  he  is  simply  the  narrator  and  interpreter  of  all  that 
we  are  offered.  He  is  often,  says  Mr.  James,  "but  an 
unnamed,  unintroduced  and  (save  by  right  of  intrinsic 
wit)  unwarranted  participant,  the  impersonal  author's 
concrete  deputy  or  delegate,"  etc.21  Yet  by  means  of  him, 
the  effect  is  at  least  made  objectively  pictorial  without 
any  recourse  to  the  "mere  muffled  majesty  of  irrespon 
sible  'authorship.'  "  .  Through  him  the  facts  are  given 
with  greater  authority  than  can  attach  to  the  "omnis 
cience"  of  any  writer  of  fiction. 

One  at  once  recalls  instances  of  this  comparatively 
unconcerned  observer  in  tales  from  every  period  except 
the  very  latest.  Such  are  the  persons  who  tell  the  stories 
of  "A  Passionate  Pilgrim,"  "The  Madonna  of  the 
Future,"  "The  Pension  Beaurepas"  (all  products  of  the 

20  Vol.  XXIII,  pp.  vi-vii. 

21  Id.,  p.  v. 


Point  of  View 


70's)  ;  those  of  "The  Patagonia,"  "The  Author  of  Bel- 
traffio,"  "The  Aspern  Papers"  (all  from  the  80's)  ;  those 
of  "The  Death  of  the  Lion"  and  "Europe"  (from  the 
90's) .  In  all  of  these  tales  the  account  is  given  in  the  first 
person,  since  the  objections  to  the  autobiographic  method 
do  not  hold  when  there  is  no  question  of  the  revelation 
of  one's  own  character  and  affairs.  Sometimes,  however, 
as  in  "Pandora,"  "The  Liar,"  and  "The  Two  Faces,"  the 
third  person  is  used  even  of  this  objective  observer  of 
the  scene. 

Of  course  this  observer  is  not  represented  as  an  intru 
sive  person  with  no  more  legitimate  interest  in  the  story 
than  our  universal  human  curiosity.  That  would  be  to 
make  him  too  disagreeable  for  the  purpose ;  or  it  would  be 
too  obviously  a  device  for  plausibility.  f~His  relation  to 
the  other  characters  must  always  be  a  natural  one.  The 
situation  has  come  to  his  notice,  in  the  first  instance,  in 
a  perfectly  natural  manner ;  and  if  he  goes  on  to  pursue 
his  inquiry,  this  is  the  result  of  a  friendly  or  professional 
interest  proper  enough.  In  a  considerable  number  of 
cases  he  is  a  man  of  letters  for  whom  the  interest  in  a 
literary  phenomenon  comes  to  reinforce  his  friendly  sym 
pathy  for  the  persons  concerned.  Often,  as  in  "The 
Figure  in  the  Carpet,"  he  has  some  little  axe  of  his  own 
to  grind;  sometimes,  as  in  "The  Beldonald  Holbein," 
a  little  grudge  of  his  own  to  gratify.  And  so,  by  insen 
sible  degrees,  this  character  passes  over  into  that  of  the 
interested  observer,  the  actor  himself.  But  we  are  at 
present  considering  the  observer  whose  concern  in  the 
action  remains  slight  and  secondary. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  device  of~ttie  non-interested 
observer  is  used  by  James  only  in  his  shorter  stories,  or 
tales,  and  not  in  his  novels.  The  reason  is  not  far  to 
seek.  The  real  inwardness  of  any  situation,  the  intimate 


/o  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

personal  feeling,  cannot  be  rendered  thus  from  the  out 
side.  But  then  it  is  scarcely  possible  for  the  intimate 
personal  feeling  to  be  rendered,  for  the  real  inwardness 
of  a  situation  to  be  developed,  by  whatever  means,  in 
any  but  the  longest  of  tales.  It  takes  time  to  get  up 
momentum  in  the  subjective  world,  to  achieve  the  effect 
of  weight  and  depth  of  feeling.  And  it  is  clear  that  the 
tales  of  Henry  James  are  very  seldom  as  subjective  in 
method  or  intention  as  his  novels.  They  are  not  so  full 
and  deep  in  conception  as  the  novels.  They  are  but  epi 
sodes,  fragments,  glimpses  of  life  caught  on  the  wing. 
And  they  can  often  best  be  realized  through  the  narrative 
of  a  comparative  outsider.  In  the  later  stories,  novel  and 
tale  alike,  the  subjective  tendency  is  much  greater.  And  it 
is  remarkable  how  little  use  is  made  in  the  twentieth 
century  tales  of  the  device  which  was  earlier  such  a 
favorite.  "The  Beast  in  the  Jungle,"  "Crapy  Cornelia," 
"The  Bench  of  Desolation" — these  stories  follow  from 
within  the  feeling  and  fortunes  of  the  characters  most 
concerned.22 

Whether  the  situation  is  presented  from  without  or 
from  within,  James  has  frequent  recourse  to  another 
device  for  throwing  additional  light  upon  it.  This  is  the 
introduction  of  a  confidante — for  this  person  is  almost 
invariably  a  woman — with  whom  the  (generally  male) 
observer  or  actor  may  discuss  the  situation,  comparing 
notes  and  checking  up  theories.  This  device  is  common 
in  the  novels  and  not  infrequent  in  the  tales.  There  are 
hints  of  this  character  in  the  early  period,  such  as  Mrs. 
Draper  in  "Madame  de  Mauves,"  Mrs.  Tristram  in  "The 
American/'  Blanche  Adney  in  "The  Private  Life."  But 

22  The  two  last-named  published  in  'The  Finer  Grain"  (1910), 
and  first  appearing  in  magazines  in  1909,  too  late  to  be  included 
in  the  New  York  edition. 


Point  of  View 


she  becomes  much  more  important,  and  maintains  her 
importance  more  steadily  throughout  the  course  of  the 
story,  in  the  later  period :  witness  Mrs.  Munden  in  "The 
Beldonald  Holbein,"  Mrs.  Wix  in  "Maisie,"  Maria  Gos- 
trey  in  "The  Ambassadors,"  Mrs.  Assingham  in  "The 
Golden  Bowl."  It  is  Mrs.  Munden  who  first  gives  his 
cue  to  the  portrait-painter  who  tells  the  story  as  to  the 
leading  motive  of  Lady  Beldonald,  and  who  follows  with 
him  each  stage  in  the  situation  resulting  from  the  impor 
tation  of  her  ugly-beautiful  American  cousin.  It  is  with 
Mrs.  Wix  that  little  Maisie  works  out  the  moral  problem 
involved  in  the  relation  of  her  step-father  and  her  step 
mother.  It  is  Maria  Gostrey  who  gives  Strether  his 
gradual  initiation  into  the  spirit  of  "Europe"  and  who 
receives  his  regular  reports  on  the  progress  of  his  curious 
embassy.  It  is  to  Mrs.  Assingham  that  the  Prince 
Amerigo  brings  the  perplexities  occasioned  by  his  mar 
riage  into  so  different  a  world  from  that  in  which  he  has 
been  bred.  These  persons  do  not  tend  to  confuse  the 
point  of  view.  They  serve  rather  to  strengthen  the  light 
thrown  upon  the  situation  from  the  mind  of  the  chief 
observer.  They  are  his  confederates,  acting  and  above 
all  making  observations  in  his  interest.  They  give  infor-  7 
mation  and  suggestion  without  which  he  could  hardly 
arrive  at  a  proper  understanding  of  the  case.  They  set 
him  right  when  he  goes  astray.  Above  all,  as  sympa 
thetic  and  intelligent  listeners,  they  encourage  him  to 
express  in  words  his  view  of  the  case  he  is  observing 
and  of  his  own  position  in  relation  to  it.  They  are  thus 
serving  him  and  the  author  at  the  same  time.  They  serve 
to  transfer  the  record  from  the  mind  to  the  tongue  of  the 
observer,  to  dramatize  the  point  of  view,  as  it  were, 
realizing  it,  or  objectifying  it  in  speech,  and  so  rendering 
it  fit  for  the. purposes  of  fiction. 


VI 
DIALOGUE 

The  confidante  bears  her  part  in  the  drama  almost 
exclusively  in  the  way  of  talk.  She  bears  a  very  large 
part,  especially  in  the  later  period.  And  this  brings  to 
mind  what  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  the 
stories  of  James,  above  all  in  this  later  period.  That  is 
the  peculiar  character  and  function  of  the  dialogue.  One 
need  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  dialogue  is  one 
of  the  strong  points  in  the  novels  of  James — providing 
one  is  prepared  to  explain  the  statement. 

A  great  disappointment  is  in  store  for  anyone  coming 
to  the  dialogue  of  James  in  the  expectation  of  finding 
those  features  which  make  the  peculiar  attraction  of  the 
dialogue  of  novelists  in  general.  His  forte  does  not  lie 
in  this  direction,  or  in  these  directions.  In  Thackeray, 
one  principal  charm  of  the  talk  is  the  highly  colored  and 
amusing  reproduction  of  "manners," — the  varying  de 
grees  of  breeding,  of  social  elevation ;  the  ignorances  and 
snobberies,  the  pride  and  sycophancy,  of  the  characters. 
In  Dickens  we  have  the  widest  range  of  drollery  in  the 
manner  of  speech, — the  jerky  puppet-utterance  of  a  Mr. 
Jingle  or  a  Betsy  Trotwood,  the  humor  and  impudence  of 
a  Sam  Weller,  the  quaint  solecism  of  his  low-life  charac 
ters.  In  Hardy  we  have  a  more  poetical  rendering  of 
the  quaintness  of  rustic  conversation.  In  Meredith  we 
are  dazzled  with  the  wit  of  the  drawing-room  and  the 
erudition  of  the  library ;  in  Scott  with  the  heroic  audacity 
or  the  noble  dignity  of  speech  of  historical  personages. 
In  Alexander  Dumas  (pere),  we  run  through  page  on 


Dialogue  73 


page  of  "snappy"  dialogue,  in  which  a  Gascon  swagger 
and  the  constant  "springing"  of  surprises  keep  us  forever 
enlivened  and  on  the  qui  vive.  In  almost  all  the  standard 
novels,  the  "great"  scenes  are  those  in  which  some  stren 
uous  conflict  of  wills  comes  to  a  head  in  a  "crack-crack" 
of  words, — each  speaker  laying  down,  if  I  may  change 
the  figure,  trump  card  after  trump  card  until  the  hand  is 
played  out. 

But  James  very  seldom  draws  upon  any  of  these  funds 
of  interest.  The  contrast  of  cultures — in  the  Thack- 
erayan  sense — is  seldom  a  part  of  his  subject.  Rustics 
and  eccentrics  are  almost  wholly  wanting.  He  is  at  no 
pains  to  make  his  characters  witty  or  grandiloquent  or 
magnanimous  in  any  spectacular  manner.  And  "great" 
scenes  of  the  sort  described  above  are  outside  his  scope 
and  aim.  There  are  strenuous  conflicts  of  will ;  but  they 
are  carried  on  between  masked  combatants,  concerned 
above  all  to  prevent  a  violent  explosion,  or  any  exposure 
to  the  gaze  of  the  vulgar.  When  they  play  their  trump 
card,  it  is  not  with  a  great  smack  down  upon  the  table. 
They  drop  it  rather  out  of  their  voluminous  coat-sleeves 
and  slip  it  on  the  green  baize  with  discreet  and  apologetic 
gesture.  Thus  in  general  we  may  say  of  the  dialogue 
of  James  that  in  comparison  with  the  work  of  the  great 
masters  of  fiction  in  English,  it  is  colorless  and  feature 
less,  wanting  in  variety  and  intensity  of  flavor,  little 
given  to  rendering  the  "characters"  and  surface-effect 
of  the  drama.  Its  merits  are  of  another  order. 

It  is  true  that,  in  his  earlier  work,  Mr.  James  made 
many  experiments  in  the  more  usual  modes.  In  "The 
Bostonians,"  we  meet  at  Miss  Birdseye's  gathering  in 
South  Boston  a  group  of  eccentrics  done,  as  nearly  as  the 
American  author  knew  how,  in  the  manner  of  Dickens. 
In  "Roderick  Hudson,"  in  "The  American,"  even  in 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


"The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  we  have  characters  of  the 
milder  Thackeray  infusion,  but  still  recognizable  as  Vic 
torian  "humorists."  In  the  earlier  chapters  of  "The 
American,"1  the  author  has  devoted  considerable  care  to 
rendering  in  conversation  the  "character"  of  the  two 
Americans  in  Paris,  Mr.  Tristram  and  Christopher  New 
man,  —  the  vulgar  sprightliness  and  man-of  -the-  world 
assurance  of  the  one;  the  freshness,  the  directness,  the 
quaint  humor  and  abounding  energy  of  the  other;  the 
American  colloquialism  and  want  of  acquaintance  with 
old-world  standards  of  them  both.  Much  is  made  too  of 
the  degrees  of  proficiency,  or  want  of  proficiency,  of 
Newman  in  his  use  of  the  French  language.  Similarly 
the  author  has  "laid  himself  out"  on  Mile.  Noemie  Nioche 
and  her  father,  types  smelling  strongly  of  Thackeray's 
Boulogne,  —  with  which,  by  the  way,  in  the  book  and  out, 
James  had  been  saturated  from  the  earliest  days. 

Somewhat  cruder  is  the  humorous  touch  upon  charac 
ters  in  "Roderick  Hudson,"  the  earliest  of  all  the  novels 
later  acknowledged.  There  is  Mr.  Barnaby  Striker,  the 
Northampton  attorney,  of  quaint  gestures  and  attitudes, 
whose  expressed  view  of  his  own  career  and  character 
faintly  reminds  us  of  Mr.  Gradgrind  in  "Hard  Times." 
There  is  Mr.  Leavenworth,  patron  of  art  after  his  retire 
ment  from  the  proprietorship  of  large  mines  of  borax  in 
the  Middle  West,  whose  pompous  manner  of  speech 
smacks  not  a  little  of  the  earlier  Victorian  style.  "You'll 
find  me  eager  to  patronize  our  indigenous  talent,"  he  says, 
for  example.  "You  may  be  sure  that  I've  employed  a 
native  architect  for  the  large  residential  structure  that 
I'm  erecting  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio.  I've  sustained 
a  considerable  loss  [referring,  if  I  remember  rightly,  to 
the  death  of  his  wife]  ;  but  are  we  not  told  that  the  office 

1  On  the  other  hand,  Mrs.  Bread  speaks  as  we  all  might  wish  to. 


Dialogue  75 


of  art  is  second  only  to  that  of  religion?"2  More 
specifically  of  the  Thackeray  tradition  are  the  adven 
turers  and  adventuresses  who  figure  in  this  book.  There 
is  the  tropical  envoy  described  in  the  thirteenth  chapter, 
with  the  other  "queer  fish"  whose  company  was  for  a 
time  frequented  by  Roderick,  although  they  were  "out 
side  of  Rowland's  well-ordered  circle."  But  these 
characters  make  no  talk.  Among  the  more  important 
characters  of  Thackeray  an  flavor  who  do  make  talk  are 
Madame  Grandoni,  the  Cavaliere  and  Mrs.  Light,  not  to 
press  the  more  remote  resemblance  of  Christina  Light 
to,  say,  Blanche  Amory.  The  vulgarity  and  social  ambi 
tion,  the  superstition  and  unscrupulousness,  the  plausible 
good-nature  of  Christina's  mother  make  her  remind  us, 
as  she  reminded  Madame  Grandoni,  "of  some  extrava 
gant  old  woman  in  a  novel — in  something  of  Hofmann  or 
Balzac,  something  even  of  your  own  Thackeray." 3  Her 
garrulity,  extensively  illustrated  in  the  text,  reminds  us 
of  Thackeray  where  it  does  not  remind  us  more  of  Jane 
Austen. 

Among  the  other  more  common  uses  of  the  dialogue 
to  be  found  in  "Roderick  Hudson,"  we  may  mention  the 
great  "scene,"  in  the  twenty-first  chapter,  in  which 
Roderick  so  frightens  his  mother  and  distresses  his 
fiancee  with  the  frantic  confession  of  his  failure.  There 
is  also  the  "high-brow"  discussion  of  art  in  the  sixth 
chapter,  reminding  one  of  "The  Marble  Faun,"  and  not 
at  all  of  James's  later  work.  And  there  are  instances 
likewise  of  what  must  have  been  intended  for  "witty" 
conversation,  introduced  to  give  the  tone,  or  one  of  the 

2  Vol.  I,  p.  193. 

3  Id.,  p.   164.     Again  some  woman  met  by  Roderick  at  the 
Kursaal  reminded  Rowland  of  Thackeray's  Madame  de  Cruch<- 
ecassee;  see  p.  139. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


tones,  of  smart  society.  The  following  interchange,  for 
example,  takes  place  in  the  course  of  a  stroll  in  a  Roman 
garden.  Present  are  Roderick  and  Christina,  Mrs.  Light, 
the  Cavaliere  and  the  Prince. 

"I  should  have  liked  to  lie  down  on  the  grass  and  go  to 
sleep,"  Christina  added.  "But  it  would  have  been  un 
heard  of." 

"Oh,  not  quite,"  said  the  Prince  in  English,  with  a 
fine  acquired  distinctness.  "There  was  already  a  Sleep 
ing  Beauty  in  the  Wood." 

"Charming  !"  cried  Mrs.  Light.  "Do  you  hear  that,  my 
dear?" 

"When  the  Prince  says  a  brilliant  thing,  it  would  be 
a  pity  to  lose  it,"  said  the  girl.  "Your  servant,  sir!" 
And  she  smiled  at  him  with  a  grace  that  might  have 
reassured  him  if  he  had  thought  her  compliment  ambigu 
ous.4 

It  is  obviously  not  in  any  of  these  directions  that  we 
are  to  look  for  peculiar  excellence  in  the  dialogue  of 
Henry  James.  He  did  well  to  recognize  the  inferiority 
of  his  performances  in  the  manner  of  Dickens  or  Thack 
eray  or  whatsoever  humorous  or  dramatic  English 
novelist.  The  characteristic  dialogue  of  his  maturer  work 
is  of  quite  a  different  order.  The  speakers,  in  the  first 
place,  are  very  little  differentiated  as  to  language  and 
manner  of  speech,  or,  for  that  matter,  as  to  any  of  the 
more  obvious  marks  of  character.  They  are  all  of 
approximately  the  same  degree  of  culture  and  intelli 
gence.  They  are  generally  persons  of  great  social  expert- 
ness.  There  is  nothing  formal  or  pedantic  in  their 
language,  nor  on  the  other  hand  any  tincture  of  solecism, 
dialect  or  localism,  unless  it  be  those  of  London.  They 
speak  almost  without  exception  what  we  may  suppose 

4  P.  235. 


Dialogue  77 


to  be  the  purest  of  London  drawing-room  slang.  This 
must  be  qualified  to  the  extent  that  they  are  often  making 
points  so  fine  they  are  obliged  to  take  on  some  of  James's 
own  metaphysical  vocabulary  of  analysis.  Their  sen 
tences  have  often  the  double  involution  of  metaphysics 
and  extemporaneous  colloquialism.  They  are  sometimes 
long,  frequently  subject  to  qualifying  parenthesis,  abrupt 
transition,  and  breaking  off  without  completion.  These 
eager  interlocutors  are  forever  interrupting,  politely 
contradicting,  or  earnestly  confirming  one  another's 
statements. 

These  conversations  may  be  divided  into  two  more  or 
less  distinct  groups,  according  as  the  speakers  are  to  be 
classed  as  confederates  or  as  antagonists;  although  we 
must  take  into  account  also  a  large  number  of  scenes  in 
which  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  the  character  of  con 
federacy  or  of  antagonism  predominates  in  the  relation. 

In  extent  and  frequency  of  occurrence,  the  dialogue  of 
confederates  is  much  in  the  lead.  And  this  we  may 
consider  the  pure  and  simple  type  of  all  dialogue  in  the 
later  period.  This  is  the  chief  means  by  which  the  author 
develops  his  idea,  or  brings  out  his  picture.  It  is  gen 
erally  in  these  conversations  that  we  are  informed  as  to 
the  incidents  or  objective  facts  which  make  the  backbone 
as  well  as  the  animated  flesh  of  the  ordinary  novel,  but 
which  in  James  are  relegated  to  the  secondary  position 
of  subject-matter  for  talk.  Indeed  one  of  the  chief 
functions  of  dialogue  is  here  the  gradual  revelation  of 
the  facts  of  the  story, — both  the  primary  data,  on  which 
the  story  is  based,  and  also  the  further  incidents  which 
take  place  within  the  proper  limits  of  the  story.  It  is 
thus,  for  example,  that,  during  the  play  in  London, 
Maria  Gostrey  gets  out  of  Strether,  bit  by  bit,  with 
judicious  questions,  the  antecedent  facts  of  the  story 


78  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

of  "The  Ambassadors," — the  character  of  Mrs.  New- 
some  and  Strether's  connection  with  her,  the  wonderful 
business  possibilities  at  Woollett  and  the  general  situation 
there,  Woollett's  view  of  Paris,  and  the  idea  of  the 
embassy.  It  is  thus  that,  in  their  later  meetings, 
Strether  reports  to  her  from  time  to  time  whatever  dis 
coveries  he  has  made  in  Paris.  It  is  thus  that,  near  the 
end  of  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove,"  Densher  gets  out  of 
Kate  Croy  the  main  facts  of  the  story  in  Venice  as 
regards  Lord  Mark. 

Of  course  this  use  of  the  dialogue  is  not  confined  to 
James.  But  no  English  novelist,  I  think,  has  reduced 
it  to  such  a  system  and  made  it  so  organic  and  indispen 
sable  a  part  of  his  method.  They  introduce  it  every 
little  while  in  lumps  as  they  feel  the  need  of  sweetening 
the  drink.  It  is  but  an  alternative  means  of  relating  the 
facts,  displaying  the  characters  or  enlivening  the  action. 
In  James  it  is  much  more  deliberately  used  as  a  technical 
device.  It  is  his  trick  for  giving  a  dramatic  cast  to  the 
narrative,  for  making  the  characters  tell  their  own  story. 

But  the  facts  are  soon  told — when  once  the  author  is 
ready  to  let  us  have  them.  And  much  more  of  the 
dialogue  is  given  up  to  the  discussion  of  the  facts, — to 
the  process  of  their  assimilation.  "What  were  the 
facts  ?"  is  a  question  that  quickly  gives  place  to  the  more 
important  questions :  "What  do  they  mean  ?"  "How  do 
they  affect  the  situation?"  and  (if  "we"  are  more  than 
mere  observers  personally  unconcerned)  "Where  are  we 
then?"  In  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  the  Prince  has  two 
"confederates" — Charlotte  Stant,  his  actual  partner  in 
guilt;  and  Mrs.  Assingham,  who  in  the  first  instance  is 
merely  the  confidante  of  his  perplexities  and  anxieties,  but 
who  becomes,  in  the  course  of  the  action,  a  critic  to  whom 
he  and  Charlotte  must  give  an  account  of  themselves. 


Dialogue  79 


The  culmination  of  the  first  part  of  the  story  is  in  Book 
Three,  where  we  are  shown  the  four-cornered  "situation" 
already  constituted  and  needing  only  to  be  made  clear. 
In  the  first  chapters  of  this  book,  Charlotte  and  the 
Prince  take  turns  in  explaining  it  to  Mrs.  Assingham  at 
the  Ambassador's  ball.  In  the  third  chapter  Mrs.  Assing 
ham  discusses  what  she  has  heard  with  the  Colonel  as 
they  drive  home.  In  the  several  ensuing  chapters,  it  is 
the  Prince  and  Charlotte  who,  in  a  succession  of  meet 
ings  a  deux,  work  out  to  their  own  satisfaction  what 
they  choose  to  consider  the  beautiful  completeness  and 
symmetry  of  a  situation  in  which  all  four  parties  are 
suited.  In  the  final  chapters  of  this  third  book,  we  learn 
from  the  discussions  of  Mrs.  Assingham  and  the  Colonel 
that  a  new  factor  has  come  in  to  upset  the  equation. 
Maggie's  eyes  have  at  last  been  opened  to  the  presence 
of  evil  in  the  world,  and  she  is  now  setting  about  really 
to  secure  the  man  whom  she  has  married.  In  this  quiet 
and  indirect  way  we  have  been  shown  the  climax  of 
the  story  and  its  turning  point, — the  turning  of  this 
massive  tide  of  human  feeling  and  desire.  There  has 
been  no  attempt  to  exploit  the  "dramatic"  aspects  of  the 
situation,  the  values  for  show  and  sensation.  There  has 
been  consequently  nothing  showy  or  spectacular  in  the 
dialogue.  It  is  the  significance  of  the  drama  upon  which 
author  and  characters  have  turned  all  their  attention ;  and 
the  talk  in  which  the  significance  has  been  worked  out 
naturally  reflects  the  essentially  intellectual  character  of 
the  process. 

Whether  between  confederates  or  antagonists,  the  pace 
of  the  talk  is  typically  very  slow,  with  occasional  bursts 
of  rapid  fire  in  the  exchange  of  views. 

Between  antagonists,  it  is  a  game  they  are  playing, 
say  a  game  of  chess,  in  which  each  move  must  be  studied 


8o  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

with  intensest  concentration  upon  the  manifold  contin 
gencies  involved. 

Between  confederates  the  process  may  be  represented 
by  the  figure  of  a  puzzle-picture  which  they  are  putting 
together  with  one  another's  help,  opposed  only  in  the 
spirit  of  emulation  in  which  one  or  the  other  fits  in  his 
piece.  Between  plays  they  are  always  giving  one  another 
significant  looks,  looks  of  inquiry  or  understanding,  or 
even  looks  that  amount  to  a  move  in  the  game,  conveying 
as  they  often  do  more  than  the  spoken  word.  It  is  a 
close  and  exacting  occupation,  taxing  to  the  full  the  intel 
lectual  faculties  of  these  partners.  We  are  constantly 
being  told  how  well  they  "follow"  one  another,  or  how 
one  of  them  receives  a  momentary  "check."  In  this 
co-operative  game,  a  piece  once  placed  is  not  necessarily 
put  down  for  good,  but  may  be  taken  back  upon  sugges 
tion  from  one's  companion,  and  another  tried  in  its  place. 
It  is  thus  that  is  developed  a  special  variety  of  talk 
peculiar  to  the  characters  of  James,  with  a  thousand 
recurring  tricks  or  mannerisms  if  you  please.  It  is 
often  conducted  by  question  and  answer.  One  inquires 
first  for  the  facts,  and  then  the  other  offers,  in  the  form 
of  question,  a  tentative  explanation  of  the  facts,  to  be 
confirmed  or  to  be  refuted.  The  remark  of  one  is  taken 
up  by  the  other,  repeated  with  or  without  variation,  and 
carried  further.  The  ball  is  tossed  from  one  to  the  other 
down  the  length  of  the  field,  and  at  last  lodged  in  the 
basket  with  the  finality  of  "there  you  are !"  The  refer 
ence  of  pronouns  is  often  misunderstood,  or  in  doubt,  and 
we  are  then  set  right  and  carried  further  by  our  very 
mistake.  Or  else,  the  reference  being  unmistakable,  the 
other  party  to  the  dialogue  deliberately  changes  the  pro 
noun  and  so  throws  some  new  and  interesting  light  on  the 
connection.  By  this  means  speech  is  tied  to  speech,  all 


Dialogue  81 


down  the  page,  and  over  the  page,  by  a  sort  of  logical 
liaison. 

To  give  an  idea  of  this  dialectic  game  of  confederates, 
I  cannot  do  better  than  transcribe  portions  of  a  typical 
conversation  between  Strether  and  Maria  Gostrey  from 
the  eleventh  book  of  "The  Ambassadors."  I  shall  take 
the  liberty  of  italicizing  words  and  phrases  that  blaze  the 
trail  of  the  argument,  as  well  as  writing  in  capitals  those 
which  emphasize  the  act  and  process  of  thought. 
Strether  and  Maria  are  discussing  her  tentative  sugges 
tion  that  Chad  should  pay  his  mother  a  short  visit  in 
Woollett. 

"Why  doesn't  he  pay  his  mother  a  visit?  Even  a  week, 
at  this  good  moment,  would  do." 

"My  dear  lady,"  Strether  replied— and  HE  HAD  IT 
even  to  himself  SURPRISINGLY  READY—  "my  dear 
lady,  his  mother  has  paid  HIM  a  visit."  [He  refers  to 
the  coming  of  Mrs.  Newsome's  daughter,  Sarah  Pocock.] 
"Mrs.  Newsome  has  been  with  him,  this  month,  with  an 
intensity  that  I'm  sure  he  has  thoroughly  felt;  he  has 
lavishly  entertained  her,  and  she  has  let  him  have  her 
thanks.  Do  you  suggest  he  shall  go  back  for  more  of 
them?" 

Well,  SHE  SUCCEEDED  after  a  little  IN  SHAK 
ING  IT  OFF.  "I  SEE.  It's  what  you  don't  suggest— 
what  you  haven't  suggested.  And  you  know." 

"So  would  you,  my  dear,"  he  kindly  said,  "if  you  had 
so  much  as  seen  her." 

"As  seen  Mrs.  Newsome?" 

"No,  Sarah — which,  both  for  Chad  and  for  myself,  has 
served  all  the  purpose." 

"And  served  it  in  a  manner,"  she  RESPONSIVELY 
MUSED,  "so  extraordinary!" 

"Well,  you  see,"  he  partly  explained,  "what  it  comes 
to  is  that  she's  all  cold  thought — which  Sarah  could 
serve  to  us  cold  without  its  really  losing  anything.  So 
it  is  that  we  know  what  she  thinks  of  us" 


82  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

MARIA  HAD  FOLLOWED,  but  SHE  HAD  AN 
ARREST.  "What  I've  never  made  out,  if  you  come 
to  that,  is  what  you  think — I  mean  you  personally — of 
HER.  Don't  you  so  much,  when  all's  said,  as  care  a 
little?" 

This  clue,  followed  in  the  same  logical  but  labyrinthine 
manner,  leads  them  to  the  fact  of  his  being  thrown  over 
by  Mrs.  Newsome.  And  they  "work  out"  together  the 
character  of  Mrs.  Newsome,  and  what  must  have  been 
her  view  of  Strether  and  of  her  son  Chad. 

SHE  TURNED  IT  OVER,  but  as  hoping  to  clarify 
much  rather  than  to  harmonise.  "The  thing  is  that  I 
suppose  you've  been  disappointing — " 

"Quite  from  the  first  of  my  arrival?  I  dare  say.  I 
admit  /  was  surprising  even  to  myself." 

"And  then  of  course,"  Maria  went  on,  "I  had  much 
to  do  with  it." 

"With  my  being  surprising—?" 

"That  will  do,"  she  laughed,  "if  you're  too  delicate  to 
call  it  MY  being!  Naturally"  she  added,  "you  came 
over  more  or  less  for  surprises." 

"Naturally!" — he  valued  the  reminder. 

"But  they  were  to  have  been  all  for  you" — she  CON 
TINUED  TO  PIECE  IT  OUT— "and  none  of  them  for 
her." 

Once  more  he  stopped  before  her  [he  had  been  pacing 
up  and  down  in  the  manner  usual  with  him  in  these 
exciting  moments  of  excogitation]  as  if  she  had  touched 
the  point.  "That's  just  her  difficulty — that  she  doesn't 
admit  surprises"  etc.  [She  has  her  mind  entirely  made 
up.]  "She's  filled  as  full,  packed  as  tight,  as  she'll  hold, 
and  if  you  wish  to  get  anything  more  or  different  either 
out  or  in — " 

"You've  got  to  make  over  altogether  the  woman  her 
self?" 

"What  it  comes  to,"  said  Strether,  "is  that  you've  got 
morally  and  intellectually  to  get  rid  of  her." 


Dialogue  83 


They  continue  to  discuss  Mrs.  Newsome  and  her  point 
of  view,  and  two  pages  later  we  see  Strether  "coming  up 
in  another  place."  He  explains  that  Mrs.  Newsome  had 
made  up  her  mind  that  he  was  going  to  discover  "hor 
rors"  in  Paris,  and  that  it  didn't  "suit  her  book"  when 
he  failed  to  discover  them. 

"...  That  was  her  disappointment." 

"You  mean  you  were  to  have  found  Chad  himself 
horrible?" 

"I  was  to  have  found  the  woman." 

"Horrible?" 

"Found  her  as  she  imagined  her"  And  Strether 
paused  as  if  for  his  own  expression  of  it  he  could  add 
no  touch  to  that  picture. 

His  companion  HAD  meanwhile  THOUGHT.  "She 
imagined  stupidly — so  it  comes  to  the  same  thing." 

"Stupidly?    Oh !"  said  Strether. 

But  she  insisted.     "She  imagined  meanly" 

He  had  it,  however,  better.  "It  couldn't  but  be 
ignorantly" 

"Well,  intensity  with  ignorance — what  do  you  want 
worse  ?" 

"This  question  might  have  held  him,  but  he  let  it  pass." 

"Sarah  isn't  ignorant — now;  she  keeps  up  the  theory 
of  the  horrible" 

"Ah  but  she's  intense — and  that  by  itself  will  do  some 
times  as  well.  If  it  doesn't  do,  in  this  case,  at  any  rate, 
to  deny  that  Marie's  charming,  it  will  do  at  least  to  deny 
that  she's  good" 

"What  I  claim  is  that  she's  good  for  Chad" 

"You  don't  claim— SUE  SEEMED  TO  LIKE  IT 
CLEAR— that  she's  good  for  YOU" 

"But,"  he  continued  without  heeding.  "That's  what  I 
wanted  them  to  come  out  for — to  see  for  themselves  if 
she's  bad  for  him" 

"And  now  that  they've  done  so  they  won't  admit  that 
she's  good  even  for  anything?" 

"They  do  think"  Strether  presently  admitted,  "that 


8 4  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

she's  on  the  whole  about  as  bud  for  me.  But  they're 
consistent  of  course,  inasmuch  as  they've  their  clear  view 
of  what's  good  for  both  of  us." 

"For  you,  to  begin  with"— Maria,  ALL  RESPON 
SIVE,  confined  the  question  for  the  moment — "to  elim 
inate  from  your  existence  and  if  possible  even  from  your 
memory  the  dreadful  creature  that  /  must  gruesomely 
shadow  forth  for  them,  even  more  than  to  eliminate  the 
distincter  evil — thereby  a  little  less  portentous — of  the 
person  whose  confederate  you've  suffered  yourself  to 
become.  However,  that's  comparatively  simple.  You 
can  easily,  at  the  worst,  after  all,  give  me  up." 

"I  can  easily,  at  the  worst,  after  all,  give  you  up."  The 
irony  was  so  obvious  that  it  needed  no  care.  "I  can  easily 
at  the  worst,  after  all,  even  forget  you." 

"Call  that  then  workable.  But  Mr.  Newsome  has 
much  more  to  forget.  How  can  HE  do  it?" 

"Ah  THERE  AGAIN  WE  ARE!  That's  just  what 
I  was  to  have  made  him  do;  just  where  I  was  to  have 
worked  with  him  and  helped." 

These  passages  of  linked  remark  and  rejoinder,  of  co 
operative  and  systematic  exploration,  are  typical  of  the 
dialogue  in  the  later  stories  whenever  the  persons  engaged 
have  an  identity  of  interest,  being  purely  what  I  have 
called  confederates.  When  they  are  antagonists,  or  when 
at  least  they  have  some  opposition  of  interest,  some  need 
for  caution  and  reserve — as  is  the  case,  for  example,  with 
Fleda  Vetch  and  Owen  Gereth — certain  modifications 
necessarily  will  appear.  But  even  in  such  cases,  the 
dialogue  often  conforms  more  nearly  to  this  type  than  to 
the  more  usual  types  of  dialogue  in  novels. 

One  point  should  be  made  before  we  go  on  to  the 
observation  of  these  modified  forms  of  dialogue.  It  is 
by  no  means  mere  inquisitiveness,  nor  morbid  self-con 
sciousness,  that  inspires  the  characters  so  discussing 
themselves  and  others.  For  they  almost  invariably  have 


Dialogue  85 


a  stake  in  the  game  quite  sufficient  to  justify  their  demand 
for  information.  This  fact  seems  to  me  to  be  ignored 
by  Mr.  Littell  in  his  most  interesting  comment  on  this 
aspect  of  the  later  novels.  "Each  of  his  later  novels," 
says  Mr.  Littell,5  "is  peopled  by  protagonists  who  watch 
themselves  and  one  another,  and  by  minor  characters 
who  watch  the  protagonists  sleeplessly.  They  are  not 
more  interested  than  I,  these  minor  characters,  in  the 
great  relation  we  are  studying  together  with  such  minute 
ness."  And  Mr.  Littell  finds  it  difficult  to  reconcile  this 
"remorseless  inquisitiveness"  with  "any  remotest  regard 
for  the  questioners'  own  notions  of  distinction."  Now 
Mr.  Littell  has  certainly  characterized  very  neatly  one 
of  the  most  striking  features  of  these  stories — he  is 
discussing  specifically  the  "four  supreme  novels,"  "The 
Awkward  Age,"  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove,"  "The  Ambas 
sadors"  and  "The  Golden  Bowl"— the  intense  light  of 
observation  from  a  dozen  directions  that  beats  upon  every 
situation.  But  I  am  at  a  loss  to  know  what  particular 
characters  he  may  have  in  mind  who  are  not  more 
"interested"  than  himself  in  what  they  are  observing. 
Not  Maria  Gostrey,  the  minor  character  who  does  the 
observing  in  "The  Ambassadors."  She  has  certainly 
been  given  the  utmost  license  and  plenty  of  motive  for 
her  inquisitiveness  by  being  made  the  confidante  and 
assistant  of  Strether  in  his  embassy, — not  to  speak  of  the 
presumption  that  she  is  in  love  with  him.  Not  Milly 
Theale's  companion  nor  Aunt  Maud  in  "The  Dove." 
Not  surely  the  Duchess  nor  Mr.  Longdon  in  "The  Awk 
ward  Age."  Nor  finally  can  it  be  Mrs.  Assingham  in 
"The  Golden  Bowl,"  who  spends  so  much  of  her  time 
discussing  with  her  husband  the  situation  of  Maggie  and 
Charlotte,  the  Prince  and  Mr.  Verver.  We  cannot  surely 
5  "The  New  Republic,"  March  11,  1916. 


86  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  she  was  from  the  start  the 
friend  and  confidante  of  the  Prince,  that  he  had  invited 
her  in  so  many  words  to  be  his  "consort"  on  the  strange 
voyage  of  his  marriage,  and  that  later  on  Maggie  too 
had  come  to  her  for  light  and  help.  She  had  to  under 
stand  the  situation,  the  good  woman,  because  she  was 
obliged  to  "meddle,"  and  she  was  obliged  to  meddle, 
among  other  things,  the  author  is  at  great  pains  to  let 
us  know,  in  order  to  avoid  the  "louche"  appearance  of 
having  conspired  to  render  over- friendly  services  to  the 
Prince  in  getting  him  married  to  the  rich  American.  The 
only  person  I  can  think  of  in  all  the  later  stories  who  is 
a  mere  gossip  is  the  man  who  tells  the  story  of  "The 
Sacred  Fount";  and  even  he  has  grace  enough  to  try  to 
put  his  curiosity  in  the  light  of  a  general  or  philosophical 
interest  in  human  reactions.  And  we  must  do  Mr.  James 
the  justice  of  remembering  that  he  did  not  include  this 
story  in  the  canon.  It  is  more  than  likely  that  he  had 
grave  doubts  himself  as  to  the  real  "distinction"  of  this 
character.  In  general,  however,  his  remorseless  inquisi 
tors  have  good  reason  for  being  remorseless.  And  it 
is  this  fact  that  gives  to  their  talk  a  dignity  greater  than 
that  of  a  puzzle  or  a  game  of  chess.  It  gives  to  it  some 
of  the  deeper  human  interest  of  drama. 


VII 
DRAMA 

The  exceptional  importance  and  the  systematic  use  of 
the  dialogue  suggest  the  playwright's  method  of  telling 
his  story.  But  we  do  not  bestow  the  term  "dramatic" 
upon  scenes  and  situations  which  fail  to  show  a  marked 
opposition  of  wills.  The  dramatic  character  is  naturally 
intenser  whenever  the  persons  approach  the  relation  of 
antagonists. 

There  are  many  degrees  to  this  approach  in  the  stories 
of  James,  as  may  be  seen  best  in  those  earlier  novels  of 
the  final  period,  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton,"  "The  Awk 
ward  Age"  and  "The  Sacred  Fount."  Fleda  Vetch  may 
be  regarded  as  the  antagonist  of  her  own  lover  in  so  far 
as  she  feels  in  conscience  bound  to  dissimulate  her  love 
for  him  and  to  prescribe  for  them  both  a  line  of  conduct 
of  a  rigor  beyond  his  strength.  She  is  still  more  opposed 
to  the  mother  of  Owen,  in  spite  of  the  confederacy  at  first 
established  by  her  being  chosen  for  a  suitable  daughter- 
in-law  and  custodian  of  the  "spoils/7  Somewhat  like 
Fleda's  relation  to  Owen  is  that  of  Nanda  to  Vander- 
bank ;  and  indeed  there  is  hardly  any  pair  in  "The  Awk 
ward  Age" — as,  for  example,  Mrs.  Brook  and  Van,  Mrs. 
Brook  and  Longdon — who  have  not  ample  occasion  for 
the  display  of  caution  and  resourcefulness  in  the  fencing 
matches  in  which  they  indulge  perforce  with  one  another. 
For  while  they  always  go  outwardly  on  the  assumption 
of  being  confederates,  they  are  really  working  in  each 
case  for  different,  if  not  actually  opposed,  ends.  And 
the  universal  style  is  one  of  strenuous  eternal  vigilance 


88  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

and  elegant  dissimulation  under  a  bland  pretense  of  dis 
interested  candor.  This  variety  of  disguised  antagonism 
finds  its  simplest  case  in  the  conversations  of  the  narrator 
with  Mrs.  Briss  in  "The  Sacred  Fount."  The  narrator 
has  no  personal  interest  beyond  his  concern  for  the  integ 
rity  of  his  hypothesis.  But  Mrs.  Briss,  under  the  guise 
of  friendly  rivalry  in  behalf  of  her  hypothesis,  is  fighting 
with  all  her  strength  for  the  maintenance  of  her  own 
private  security. 

It  is  but  a  step  to  those  irreconcilable  antagonisms, 
those  relations  of  acute  hostility,  which  mark  the  intenser 
moments  of  drama.  Such  are  the  relation  of  Maggie 
and  Charlotte  in  the  later  parts  of  "The  Golden  Bowl" 
and  that  of  Isabel  Archer  and  Gilbert  Osmond  in  the 
later  parts  of  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady."  In  these  cases 
the  elements  of  hatred,  of  horror,  of  intense  fear,  are 
added  to  that  of  mere  opposition  of  aim.  And  thus  we 
have  drama  in  full  panoply.  Somewhat  in  a  class  with 
these  is  the  situation  of  Fleda  Vetch.  For  the  agony 
of  her  struggle  with  temptation,  as  well  as  with  her 
cunning  human  adversaries,  raises  the  pitch  to  a  level 
with  that  of  the  drama  of  Isabel  Archer  or  of  Maggie 
Verver. 

Yet  all  three  of  these  dramas  have  much  in  common 
with  those  less  intense  struggles  that  make  the  tissue  of 
"The  Awkward  Age"  and  "The  Sacred  Fount."  In  both 
kinds  the  characters  are  fighting  more  or  less  in  the  dark. 
In  every  case  they  are  doing  their  best  to  keep  their  own 
masks  in  place.  Always  in  the  heat  of  the  struggle  they 
must  scrupulously  maintain  their  tenue.  One  of  the 
marks  of  the  dialogue  in  all  these  relations  is  the  anxiety 
of  each  party  to  get  and  keep  a  moral  advantage  over 
his  adversary.  They  are  all  perpetually  "sparring  for 
position,"  as  they  might  say.  They  can  never  therefore 


Drama  89 


"give  themselves  away."  They  can  never  play,  like  Maria 
Gostrey  and  Lambert  Strether,  cards  on  the  table.  They 
must,  on  the  contrary,  keep  their  hands  well  hidden  from 
one  another;  and  they  must  never  play  a  trump  card 
when  their  purpose  can  be  as  well  served  by  one  of  lower 
rank. 

Naturally,  therefore,  the  talk  takes  on  a  somewhat 
different  cast  from  that  between  simple  "confederates." 
It  cannot  show  the  same  simplicity  and  completeness,  the 
same  beautiful  continuity  as  of  logical  demonstration, 
which  we  observed  in  that  of  Strether  and  Maria,  or  in 
that  of  the  Prince  and  Charlotte  working  out  their  posi 
tion  in  reference  to  Maggie  and  her  father.  There  is  a 
greater  mystery  in  this  allusive  talk  playing  above  un 
sounded  deeps.  Often  it  requires,  on  the  author's  part, 
considerable  explanation  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  minds 
of  the  parties  to  the  conversation.  And  the  dialogue 
proper  appears  greatly  reduced  in  proportion  to  "psy 
chological"  narrative.  In  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  for 
example,  in  the  great  crucial  scene  between  Maggie  and 
Charlotte,  the  dialogue  is  to  the  narrative  but  as  one  to 
four  or  five, — so  much  need  there  was  to  set  forth  the 
nature  of  Maggie's  "system"  and  the  means  other  than 
words  by  which  she  managed  to  maintain  her  "advan 
tage"  of  position  over  Charlotte — let  alone  the  accom 
paniment  of  feeling  which  makes  that  scene  so  deep  and 
moving.  Where  in  such  dialogue  the  method  does  not 
admit  of  so  much  editorial  explanation,  where  the  drama 
is  all  talk,  the  tendency  is  to  put  more  of  a  strain  on  the 
attention  of  the  reader.  This,  I  think,  is  notably  the  case 
in  "The  Awkward  Age,"  which  seems  to  me  the  most 
"difficult"  and  the  least  satisfying  of  all  James's  more 
considerable  works.  In  this  book,  the  antagonisms  are 
constantly  present,  but  in  so  disguised  a  form  as  to  keep 


po  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

the  reader's  brows  knit  more  tightly  than  those  of  the 
characters  themselves. 

On  the  whole,  however,  whether  the  opposition  is 
partial  or  complete,  one  is  more  impressed  with  the  like 
ness  than  the  unlikeness  of  the  more  dramatic  scenes  to 
those  between  mere  confederates.  The  antagonists  too 
are  working  out  together,  though  in  opposition,  the  situa 
tion  in  which  they  find  themselves.  One  of  them  at  least 
is  trying  to  find  out  something,  and  that  something  is  not 
so  much  an  objective  fact  as  a  state  of  mind  that  consti 
tutes  a  situation.  Such,  in  "The  Awkward  Age,"  is  the 
state  of  mind  of  Mr.  Longdon, — not  to  mention  that  of 
Van,  or  that  of  Nanda.  In  "The  Golden  Bowl"  it  is  the 
state  of  mind,  or  the  "system,"  of  Maggie.  Poor  Char 
lotte  Stant,  kept  equally  in  the  dark  by  her  lover,  her 
lover's  wife,  and  her  husband,  the  father-in-law  of  her 
lover,  must  relieve  herself  of  the  dreadful  suspense  as  to 
where  she  stands  by  putting  a  question  to  her  rival. 
When  Maggie  has  assured  her  that  she  accuses  her  of 
nothing,  and  has  submitted  to  that  sisterly  kiss  upon  the 
cheek,  when  the  others  concerned  have  arrived  in  time 
to  witness  that  dramatic  salutation,  then  Charlotte  knows, 
and  they  all  know,  that  a  new  pattern  has  arranged  itself 
in  their  relations.  In  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  in  all 
those  scenes  in  which  Pansy's  marriage  is  in  question, 
beneath  all  the  struggle  of  Isabel  and  Osmond,  there  is 
for  Isabel  the  great  business  of  making  out  the  character 
of  her  husband;  and  for  us  there  is,  through  her  con 
sciousness,  the  gradual  spectacle  of  the  revelation  of  his 
baseness.  The  culmination  of  the  struggle  in  "The 
Spoils  of  Poynton"  comes  with  the  full  realization  by 
Mrs.  Gereth  of  the  fundamental  difference  between  her 
ethical  scale  and  that  of  the  two  lovers.  It  is  again 
a  matter  of  question  and  answer,  of  following  a  trail. 


Drama  pi 


Fleda  has  at  last  given  in  to  Mrs.  Gereth's  importunity 
and  agreed  to  "go  to  the  Registrar"  at  once.  But  she 
has  to  acknowledge  not  knowing  where  Owen  is. 

"Find  him,  find  him,  [says  Mrs.  Gereth]  come  straight 
out  with  me  to  try  at  least  and  get  at  him." 

"How  can  I  get  at  him  ?  He'll  come  when  he's  ready," 
our  young  woman  quavered. 

Mrs.  Gereth  turned  on  her  sharply.  "Ready  for  what  ? 
Ready  to  see  me  ruined  without  a  reason  or  a  reward  ?" 

Fleda  could  at  first  say  nothing;  the  worst  of  it  all 
was  the  something  still  unspoken  between  them.  [I  have 
italicized  these  significant  words.]  Neither  of  them 
dared  utter  it,  but  the  influence  of  it  was  in  the  girl's 
tone  when  she  returned  at  last  with  great  gentleness: 
"Don't  be  cruel  to  me — I'm  very  unhappy."  The  words 
produced  a  visible  impression  on  Mrs.  Gereth,  who  held 
her  face  averted  and  sent  off  through  the  window  a  gaze 
that  kept  pace  with  the  long  caravan  of  her  treasures. 
Fleda  knew  she  was  watching  it  wind  up  the  avenue  of 
Poynton — Fleda  participated  indeed  fully  in  the  vision; 
so  that  after  a  little  the  most  consoling  thing  seemed  to 
her  to  add :  "I  don't  see  why  in  the  world  you  take  it  so 
for  granted  that  he's,  as  you  say,  'lost.' " 

Mrs.  Gereth  continued  to  stare  out  of  the  window,  and 
her  stillness  denoted  some  success  in  controlling  herself. 
"If  he's  not  lost  why  are  you  unhappy?" 

"I'm  unhappy  because  I  torment  you  and  you  don't 
understand  me." 

"No,  Fleda,  I  don't  understand  you,"  said  Mrs.  Gereth, 
finally  facing  her  again.  "I  don't  understand  you  at  all, 
and  it's  as  if  you  and  Owen  were  of  quite  another  race 
and  another  flesh.  You  make  me  feel  very  old-fashioned 
and  simple  and  bad."1 

This  is  the  climax  at  once  of  the  drama  and  of  the 
"revelation."  For  in  so  far  as  James  makes  use  of  drama, 
it  is  in  the  interest  of  the  idea.  The  idea  having  often 

1  Vol.  X,  pp.  221-222.    Again  the  italics  are  mine. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


to  do  with  a  strong  contrast  of  character  and  point  of 
view,  drama  is  a  natural  by-product  when  the  opposed 
views  come  into  action.  Or,  putting  it  the  other  way 
round,  the  dramatic  opposition  is  a  means  of  bringing 
to  light  the  contrast  which  is  the  main  subject  of  the 
book.  So  it  is  in  the  scene  from  which  quotation  has 
been  made.  And  being  as  they  are  a  means  to  the  de 
velopment  of  an  idea,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  the 
dramatic  scenes  should  partake  somewhat  of  the  nature 
of  exposition. 

This  method  is  not,  as  we  have  seen,  the  ordinary 
method  of  telling  a  story.  But  it  is  not  unlike  the  method 
of  drama  as  practiced  by  some  of  the  greatest  modern 
playwrights,  for  whom  the  play  is  not  incapable  of  de 
veloping  an  idea.  It  is  not  the  drama  of  eloquence,  the 
drama  of  "manners,"  the  drama  of  "action."  It  is  still  less 
perhaps  the  drama  of  dialogue,  —  of  the  witty  interchange 
of  paradox  and  repartee.  But  eloquence,  wit,  manners, 
even  "action,"  while  all  welcome  as  accessories,  are  none 
of  them  indispensables  of  drama.  Indispensable  alone 
is  the  personal  struggle,  brought  within  the  compass  of 
the  "scene,"  and  taken  at  a  point  acute  enough  to  be 
capable  of  holding  the  stage.2  Such  a  struggle,  so  limited 
and  focussed,  is  the  subject  of  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton." 
And  in  its  close  weave,  its  quiet,  steady,  logical  develop 
ment  of  a  human  situation,  it  recalls  the  drama  of  "Ros- 

2  Of  course,  when  I  speak  of  drama  in  a  novel,  I  do  not  mean 
to  imply  that  the  situation  as  there  given  is  actually  presentable 
on  the  stage.  However  similar  to  a  play  in  logic  and  design, 
the  novel  has  a  technique  of  its  own.  Each  form  has  its  own 
exactions  and  its  own  exemptions.  The  great  exemption  of  the 
novel  is  from  making  the  speech  of  the  characters  self-explana 
tory  and  self-sufficient  as  a  spectacle.  And  its  main  exaction  is 
the  correlative  of  this  :  the  author  of  the  novel  must  furnish  his 
dialogue  with  full  complement  of  setting  and  explanation. 


Drama  93 

mersholm"  and  "Hedda  Gabler,"  the  drama  of  "Le  Demi- 
Monde^  the  drama  of  "Der  Einsame  Weg"  and  "Leben- 
dige  Stunden."  And  we  realize  that  it  is  not  for  nothing 
that  Mr.  James  uses  the  language  of  the  "scene"  almost 
as  much  as  that  of  the  atelier  in  giving  an  account  of  the 
art  of  fiction.  James  is,  of  course,  not  by  any  means 
alone  in  being  subject  to  the  influence  of  the  stage.  Any 
one  familiar  with  the  novels  of,  say,  Mr.  Galsworthy, 
not  to  go  outside  of  our  own  language,  will  realize  how 
profoundly  the  art  of  fiction  has  been  affected  by  the  art 
of  drama  since  the  time  when  the  latter  began  to  take 
itself  with  a  seriousness  worthy  of  its  great  traditions. 

While  his  way  of  conceiving  a  scene  has  always,  in 
the  later  years,  something  of  the  dramatic,  the  novels  are 
comparatively  few  in  either  period  in  which  James,  rising 
to  the  pitch  of  drama  reached  in  "The  Spoils  of  Poyn- 
ton,"  at  the  same  time  makes  the  drama  serve  so  well 
the  purposes  of  revelation.  "The  Tragic  Muse"  has  only 
too  abundantly  the  stuff  of  drama.  The  drama  of  Nick 
Dormer  grows  cold  while  that  of  Peter  Sherringham  is 
being  warmed  up.  As  for  the  nature  of  the  material 
itself,  it  is  obvious  and  abundant,  but  it  lies  too  much  on 
the  surface  for  the  kind  of  development  that  is  the 
author's  specialty.  There  is  nothing  here  for  interpreta 
tion.  There  is  much  for  illustration — there  are  plenty 
of  items.  But  they  are  all  items  for  substantiating  a 
simple  proposition, — the  incompatibility  of  the  artistic 
and  the  practical  temperaments.  Nick  Dormer  must  be 
given  time  to  learn  the  strength  of  his  inclination  to  the 
life  of  the  artist.  But  there  is  nothing  to  be  worked  out, 
either  in  character  or  situation.  There  is  no  "System" 
to  be  tried,  like  the  system  of  Maggie  Verver  or  that  of 
Gilbert  Osmond's  wife.  There  is  no  strategy  called  for. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


And  strategy  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  drama  in  the 
best  of  Henry  James. 

The  same  objection  holds  in  much  greater  degree  for 
the  excellent  story  of  "Washington  Square";  for  "The 
Outcry,"  which  of  all  novels  of  James  approaches  most 
nearly  the  technique  of  the  play;3  and  for  the  exciting 
narrative  of  "The  Other  House."  The  last  named,  while 
it  gives  ample  scope  for  the  strategy  of  the  unscrupulous 
"lead"  (Rose  Armiger),  enlists  this  force  in  no  better 
a  cause  than  the  defamation  of  a  rival  and  the  conceal 
ment  of  murder.  And  this  is  so  far  from  being  charac 
teristic  material  for  Henry  James  that  we  are  for  once 
inclined  to  dismiss  the  work  with  the  vague  speculation 
as  to  whether  this  master  was  capable,  and  at  this  point 
in  his  career,  of  resorting  to  the  "potboiler." 

In  other  novels,  while  the  material  is  amply  susceptible 
of  development  and  potentially  dramatic,  the  inherent 
drama  largely  fails,  for  one  reason  or  another,  to  get 
itself  realised.  This  is  the  case  with  both  "Roderick 
Hudson"  and  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove."  We  never 
really  get  inside  the  skin  of  Roderick,  where  the  conflict 
may  be  supposed  to  rage,  such  is  the  limitation  imposed 
by  the  choice  of  Rowland  Mallet  for  interpreter.  The 
struggle  of  Kate  Croy  and  Milly  Theale  for  the  heart 
of  Merton  —  for  that  is  what  it  comes  to  in  spite  of 
the  beautiful  unselfishness  of  Milly  —  would  be  the  best 
material  for  drama,  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the 
influence  of  Milly  must  work  so  much  from  a  distance, 
as  it  were.  The  "scene"  can  never  dispense  with  the 
personal  presence  of  whatever  forces  are  engaged.  As 
for  "The  Ambassadors,"  the  struggle  there  takes  place 
too  exclusively  within  the  mind  of  Strether. 

3  See  the  fifth  chapter  of  Part  II. 


Drama  P5 


We  are  thus  brought  back,  for  the  really  triumphant 
assertion  of  the  dramatic  sense,  to  "The  Portrait  of  a 
Lady"  in  the  early  period,  and,  in  the  later  one,  "The 
Golden  Bowl"  and  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton."  Each  of 
these  stories  develops  an  idea  involving  contrasts  in 
character  and  point  of  view.  In  each  one  the  interest 
is  centered  upon  the  struggle  of  a  single  person— a 
woman — of  a  fineness  and  dignity  and  of  an  attractive 
humanity  such  as  to  enlist  our  full  sympathy.  Each 
woman  is  confronted  with  a  problem  bristling  with  diffi 
culties.  She  is  opposed  by  forces  only  less  strong  and 
subtle  than  herself.  She  is  shown  taking  a  line,  devising 
a  "system,"  which  she  carries  out  from  point  to  point, 
while  we  follow  without  interruption  and  with  ever 
growing  intensity  of  concern. 

And  if  one  were  to  choose  among  all  these  for  the 
drama  par  excellence,  there  would  be  little  doubt  of  the 
pre-eminence  of  "Poynton."  In  stories  so  wide  in  scope 
as  "The  Portrait"  and  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  there  must  be 
much  besides  drama.  There  must  be  a  dense  marshalling 
of  cohorts,  a  large  unfolding  of  the  human  landscape. 
The  drama  is  seen  growing  and  putting  forth  leaves  before 
the  actual  blossom  unfolds.  In  plainer  words,  the  dra 
matic  scenes  are  but  the  culmination  of  the  whole  succes 
sion  of  scenes.  This  is  implied  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
novel.  But  "Poynton"  is  largely  exempt  from  the  usual 
conditions  of  the  novel  by  virtue  of  the  more  limited 
subject-matter,  by  the  lucky  conception  of  a  conflict  which 
can  be  shown  always  at  its  height.  Perhaps  we  should 
simply  say  that  "Poynton"  is  a  nouvelle  rather  than  a 
novel,  and  has  the  concentration  proper  to  the  briefer 
form.  The  drama  takes  but  two  of  the  twenty-two  sec 
tions  to  get  in  motion.  From  the  moment  that  Fleda 
Vetch  determines  to  "cover"  Owen,  never  to  "give  him 


p<5  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

away,"  from  the  moment  that  Mrs.  Gereth  so  embarrasses 
Fleda  by  commending  her  to  Owen  for  an  ideal  daughter- 
in-law,  the  forces  have  come  to  grips.  The  great  scenes 
begin  with  the  seventh  section,  on  Owen's  visit  to  Ricks, 
when  Fleda  must  resort  to  such  cunning  diplomacy  in 
drawing  him  out  on  the  subject  of  Mona's  ultimatum,  and 
not  betraying  herself  upon  his  contrast  between  her  refine 
ment  and  the  vulgarity  of  Mona.  There  follows  the  still 
more  difficult  trial  when  she  must  pretend  ignorance  of 
Mona's  attitude  in  the  face  of  Mrs.  Gereth's  subtle  inqui 
sition.  In  the  ensuing  scenes,  the  ground  is  continually 
shifting.  Fleda  is  driven  back  from  one  line  of  defense  to 
another.  She  is  obliged  to  invent  a  new  ingenious  strategy 
to  suit  each  new  position  she  takes.  The  tide  of  feeling 
rises  higher  and  higher  as  she  finds  it  harder  and  harder  to 
satisfy  her  conscience  within  and  to  ward  off  the  attacks 
of  her  foes  without.  We  arrive  at  scenes  of  overt  drama 
— such  as  would  suit  the  visible  stage  itself — the  shock-' 
ing  of  Mrs.  Brigstock,  the  breakdown  in  the  arms  of 
Owen,  the  final  yielding  to  the  importunities  of  Mrs. 
Gereth  and  the  desire  of  her  own  heart.  Here  we  have 
reached  the  climax;  and  the  few  remaining  scenes  are 
the  quiet  but  highly  emotional  epilogue,  with  the  last 
brief  flaring  up  of  grief  at  the  burning  of  Poynton. 
There  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  large,  slowly  moving 
drama  of  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  with  all  its  deliberate 
sumptuousness  and  amplitude.  But  for  swift,  unhalting 
onward  movement,  there  is  nothing  in  James — there  is 
perhaps  nothing  anywhere — like  "The  Spoils  of  Poyn 
ton."  And  this  may  be  taken  as  the  type  and  classicl/ 
instance  of  the  "scenic"  method  in  fiction. 

Now  it  need  not  be  inferred  that  dramatic  effectiveness 
is  the  sole  measure  of  success  in  the  novels  of  James. 
Indeed  we  may  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  drama  has  never 


Drama 


been  one  of  the  indispensables  of  fiction.  Fielding  is 
great  without  it,  and  it  is  by  no  means  one  of  the  most 
important  elements  in  the  greatness  of  Scott  or  Dickens. 
It  must  have  been  observed  that  among  the  novels  of 
James  largely  wanting  in  drama  are  several  of  his  best — 
notably,  in  the  early  period,  "The  Princess  Casamassima" 
and  "The  Tragic  Muse" ;  in  the  later  period,  "The  Am 
bassadors"  and  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove."  There  can 
be  little  question  of  the  superiority  of  "The  Dove"  to 
"The  Other  House,"  or  of  "The  Ambassadors"  to  "The 
Outcry,"  in  spite  of  the  more  dramatic  character  of  the 
latter  in  each  case.  There  are  evidently  other  sources 
of  interest  still  more  important — at  least  when  taken 
together — in  determining  the  sum  of  interest  of  the  work. 
All  we  can  say  is  that,  here  or  elsewhere,  drama  is  one 
very  great  source  of  interest  in  the  novel,  and  that,  other 
things  being  equal,  we  shall  prefer  the  novel  that  draws 
largely  upon  it.  This  is  no  doubt  one  of  the  chief  reasons 
for  the  pre-eminence,  in  the  early  period,  of  "The  Por 
trait  of  a  Lady,"  and,  in  the  later  period,  of  "The  Golden 
Bowl"  and  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton." 


VIII 
ELIMINATIONS 

The  "scenic"  method  of  narrative  and  the  limitation  of 
point  of  view  carry  with  them  certain  corollaries  in  tech 
nique.  They  involve  certain  ideals  important  otherwise  in 
determining  the  art  of  James.  They  involve — to  put  it  in 
a  word — intensive  rather  than  extensive  working  of  the 
subject.  There  are  included  in  this  "word"  two  proposi 
tions,  one  positive,  the  other  negative.  The  subject  is 
to  be  worked  intensively;  it  is  not  to  be  worked  exten 
sively.  To  the  first  proposition  too  much  time  has  per 
haps  been  given  already.  It  is  in  virtue  of  the  second 
that  James  is  most  in  contrast  to  the  greater  number  of 
his  English  predecessors.  For  the  novel,  and  especially 
the  English  novel,  has  seldom  felt  very  strongly  the 
obligation  of  art  to  selection  and  elimination.  It  seems 
from  the  beginning  to  have  been  exempt  from  the  stan 
dards  of  severity  in  form.  Being  in  origin  a  kind  of 
literary  mongrel,  it  might  well  pay  no  regard  to  prescrip 
tions  against  the  melange  des  genres.  Having  for  its 
function  the  mere  entertainment  of  idle  moments,  having 
for  jury  the  miscellaneous  vulgar  herd  of  readers,  the 
only  requirement  was  that  it  should  entertain;  all  the 
resources  of  the  author  were  drawn  upon  for  diversity 
and  abundance  of  entertainment,  and  little  care  was  given 
to  fitness,  to  the  bienseances,  to  vraisemblance,  to  sobriety 
and  consistency  of  effect.  And  this  tradition  has  not 
failed  to  make  itself  felt  in  our  day.  Witness  the  popu 
larity — to  mention  only  serious  work — of  the  novels  of 


Eliminations  -  99 


Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  of  Mr.  Gilbert  Carman,  and  of  many 
other  less  gifted  improvisatori. 

But  even  in  the  novel  there  has  been  another  tradition. 
There  were  signs  of  it  in  Fielding,  and  it  was  strong  in 
Jane  Austen  and  George  Eliot.  In  our  own  time  we  have 
Mr.  Galsworthy,  Mrs.  Wharton  and  several  other  devo 
tees  of  the  more  sober  faith.  It  would  be  neither  politic 
nor  critical  to  attempt  to  rule  out  either  of  these  types  of 
novel.  We  do  not  wish  to  cut  ourselves  off  from  any 
rich  source  of  entertainment  (and  instruction)  such  as 
Mr.  Wells  has  shown  himself.  And  any  such  move  could 
easily  be  countered  with  sarcasms  upon  the  stricter  form. 
It  is  easy  to  contrast  the  poverty  and  stuffiness  of  these 
selective  writers  with  the  large  generosity  and  breeziness, 
the  manifold  suggestiveness  and  stimulation,  of  the  rapid 
fire  novelists.  And  indeed,  so  little  authority  have  classic 
standards  in  our  day,  it  is  the  more  careful  and  limited 
novelist  who  is  nowadays  most  likely  to  be  put  on  the 
defensive.  It  is  this  type  of  novelist,  in  the  person  of  its 
most  notable  exemplar  in  English,  that  is  at  this  day  most 
in  need  of  explanation. 

The  appeal  of  James  is  not  then  the  appeal  of  diversity. 
He  makes  no  concession  to  the  popular  desire  for  a  con 
stant  change  of  scene,  for  wonders  and  surprises,  for 
sensations  and  facile  amusement.  You  will  find  no  air 
ships  or  caravans  to  give  you  picturesque  transit  into 
the  clouds  or  into  gypsy-land.  Neither  politics  nor  litera 
ture,  neither  religion,  morality  nor  social  questions  make 
the  subject  of  his  discourse.  Indeed  he  is  not  inclined 
to  discourse,  nor  his  people  either.  His  people  seem  to 
have  no  theories.  Taken  up  with  their  own  particular 
human  problems,  they  show  little  interest  in  problems  in 
general.  Henry  James  may  be  the  most  psychological 
of  novelists.  He  shows  no  inclination — at  least  in  his 


zoo  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

maturer  work — to  generalize  his  psychology.  It  is  not 
he  who  analyzes  for  us  the  motives  of  his  characters.  It 
is  they  themselves  who  carry  on  any  such  investigation. 
(That  is  indeed  one  reason  why  the  stories  seem  so 
"difficult"  to  the  general  reader,  who  is  accustomed  to 
having  his  psychology  straight  from  the  author.)  And 
if  our  author  does  not  psychologize,  neither  does  he  phi 
losophize,  neither  does  he  sentimentalize.  You  will  find 
no  solid  blocks  of  reflection  upon  "life"  and  human  nature 
scattered,  Thackeray- wise,  along  the  course  of  the  narra 
tive.  You  will  find  few  producible  nuggets  of  wisdom 
such  as  catch  the  light  from  every  ledge  and  cranny  of 
Meredith's  work. 

The  appeal  of  James  is  not  by  diversity,  but  by  fineness 
of  texture,  closeness  and  subtility  of  weave,  fastidious 
ness  of  workmanship.  He  is  deeply  concerned  to  produce 
a  surface  at  once  rich  and  exquisite.  For  effects  of  this 
order  the  most  careful  selection  is  required.  The  most 
jealous  watchfulness  must  be  exercised  against  the  intru 
sion  of  materials  out  of  keeping  with  the  design.  There 
is  accordingly  no  place  for  the  excursions  and  anecdotes, 
the  surprises  and  whimsies  of  the  ordinary  novelist. 

The  first  concern  of  all  is  for  the  integrity  and  con 
sistency  of  the  scene,  of  what  Mr.  James  calls  the  "dis 
criminated  occasion,"1 — the  "secret"  of  which,  as  he 
points  out,  is  "an  adapted,  a  related  point  of  view."  The 
reduction  of  the  narrative  to  a  series  of  "discriminated 
occasions"  and  the  strict  adherence  in  each  case  to  the 
occasion  so  discriminated  explain  the  strenuous  elimina 
tion  of  the  usual  means  of  entertainment.  Mr.  James 
has  a  horror  of  the  "loose  end,"  which,  he  says,  has 
found  a  perfect  paradise  in  the  English  novel.  In  "The 
Awkward  Age,"  he  tells  us,  it  was  his  aim  to  compose 

1  Vol.  XIX,  p.  xvi. 


Eliminations  101 


a  series  of  scenes  as  objective  as  those  of  a  play.  In 
carrying  out  this  aim  he  "participated  in  the  technical 
amusement"  of  the  playwright,  finding  the  playwright's 
gratification  in  the  neatly  executed  piece  of  work.  "The 
play,"  he  says,  "consents  to  the  logic  of  but  one  way, 
mathematically  right,  and  with  the  loose  end  as  gross 
an  impertinence  on  its  surface,  and  as  grave  a  dishonour, 
as  the  dangle  of  a  snippet  of  silk  or  wool  on  the  right 
side  of  a  tapestry.  \We  are  shut  up  wholly  to  cross-rela 
tions,  relations  all  within  the  action  itself;  no  part  of 
which  is  related  to  anything  but  some  other  part — save  of 
course  by  the  relation  of  the  total  to  life."  2 

Mr.  James,  in  this  same  place,  has  a  remarkable  state 
ment  of  the  disabilities  of  the  play  in  comparison  with 
the  novel,  which  latter  may  carry  so  much  greater  weight 
and  richness  of  material.  And  he  will  never  himself 
quite  forego  the  advantage  of  the  novelist.  Even  "The 
Awkward  Age"  is  a  novel  and  not  a  play.  But  he  never, 
in  his  later  period,  loses  sight  of  that  ideal  of  the  play. 
And  he  does  forever  seek  to  reduce  all  his  material  to 
the  compass  of  the  discriminated  occasion. 

James  does  not  like  to  interrupt  his  story  to  go  back 
to  events  beyond  its  proper  limits  in  order  to  "catch  up." 
That  would  be  to  let  our  present  food  grow  cold.  It  is 
necessary,  in  "The  Ambassadors,"  to  let  us  know  some 
thing  of  the  history  of  Chad  in  Paris,  as  well  as  the  fact 
that  Strether  was  once  himself  in  early  years  an  eager 
pilgrim  at  Parisian  shrines.  But  it  is  never  Henry  James 
who  lets  us  know  of  these  circumstances;  nor  are  they 
presented  to  us  in  a  general  way.  They  come  to  us 
through  the  reflections  of  Strether  upon  a  particular 
day,  reflections  naturally  engendered  and  nourished  by 
what  he  saw  in  a  walk  through  familiar  streets  of  Paris. 

2  Vol.  IX,  p.  xx. 


102  The  Method  of  Henry  James 


In  this  way  "two  birds  are  killed  with  one  stone/'  We 
get  our  facts,  and  we  get  them  colored  and  flavored  with 
the  feeling  of  the  character.  And  besides  all  this,  we 
never  lose  for  a  moment  our  intimate  sense  of  the  present 
experience.  A  still  better  means  of  rendering  the  facts, 
because  more  dramatic,  more  animated,  is  exemplified 
by  the  conversation  with  Maria  Gostrey  in  which  we  are 
equipped,  almost  without  suspecting  it,  with  all  the  neces 
sary  data  in  regard  to  Woollett  and  the  embassy.  Inci 
dentally  Strether — and  so  the  reader — has  suggested  to 
him  reservations  and  interpretations  that  tend  to  modify 
the  facts  and  make  them  still  more  a  part  of  the  present 
experience.  They  are  not  merely  the  subject  of  present 
discussion;  they  become  the  problem  of  the  moment. 
And  they  serve  to  develop  the  characters  at  the  same  time 
that  they  advance  the  story.  It  is  by  such  means  that 
James  avoids  the  boresome  "seated  mass  of  explanation 
after  the  fact,"  the  "block  of  merely  referential  narra 
tive,"  of  which  he  speaks  with  so  much  dislike.3  It  is 
thus  with  his  characteristic  love  of  economy  in  the  interest 
of  luxury  that  he  brings  in  so  many  other  beauties  of  art 
in  the  very  train  of  utility. 

Similar  considerations  guide  him  in  regard  to  the  actual 
narrative, — the  story  of  present  events  itself.  The  great 
thing  is  to  make  the  account  particular  and  not  general, — 
to  be  forever  dealing  with  some  special  occasion.  Very 
seldom  does  the  author  take  one  of  those  bird's-eye  views 
of  a  long  period  or  a  series  of  events  so  often  resorted 
to  by  novelists  for  the  sake  of  getting  along  with  their 
story.  Very  seldom  does  he  summarize  or  classify  the 
experiences  of  his  characters  as  Mr.  Hugh  Walpole,  for 
example,  in  "Fortitude,"  summarizes  the  experiences  of 
Peter  Westcott  at  Dawson's  school,  or  as  Thackeray 

3  Vol.  XXI,  p.  xix. 


Eliminations  103 


summarizes  in  "The  Virginians"  or  even  in  "Vanity 
Fair."  James  does  not  like  to  let  his  character  so  far 
escape  him, — to  lose  touch  for  so  long  with  his  immediate 
consciousness  in  particular  circumstances.  Summaries 
and  classifications  must  come  unmistakably  through  the 
consciousness  of  the  character  himself,  or  of  someone 
else  in  the  story  who  ought  to  know.  Of  course,  in  the 
later  work,  the  problem  is  somewhat  simplified  for  James 
by  the  comparatively  brief  time,  the  comparatively  small 
number  of  events,  covered  in  the  story.  In  earlier  novels, 
like  "Roderick  Hudson"  and  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady," 
it  must  be  acknowledged,  many  violations  will  be  found 
of  a  rule  not  yet  formulated  for  himself  by  the  author. 

The  same  rule  requires  the  elimination  of  all  descrip 
tion  of  persons,  of  scenery  and  of  other  "setting,"  except 
as  they  may  be  reflected  naturally  in  the  consciousness  of 
the  characters  on  a  particular  occasion.  And  this  prac 
tically  means  the  elimination  of  all  blocks  of  description, 
of  all  but  the  briefest  of  suggestive  phrases,  or  of  details 
thoroughly  assimilated  and  enlisted  in  the  interest  of 
some  special  bias  of  interpretation.  Not  often  in  his 
maturer  work  does  James  vouchsafe  on  his  own  authority 
a  generalized  account  of  the  personal  appearance  of  his 
characters.  Nor  does  he  often  give  the  items,  whether 
of  the  appearance  in  general  or  of  the  appearance  on  a 
particular  occasion.  What  he  strives  to  render  is  the 
main  impression  of  the  personality,  with  often  the  subtle 
change  from  day  to  day,  the  waxing  and  waning  of 
beauty,  the  present  condition  of  the  soul  as  it  shows 
through  the  earthy  mask.  The  form  and  features,  the 
dress  and  attitude  are  transparencies  through  which 
shines  the  light  of  thought  and  feeling. 

Thus  one  might,  in  feeble  imitation  of  his  method, 
describe  the  author  himself  as  he  appeared  to  the  French 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


and  to  the  American  portrait  painter,  in  each  case  so 
much  more  significant  and  beautiful  than  the  man  pre 
sented  in  the  crude  items  of  the  photograph.4  We  are 
not  told  by  Sargent  and  Blanche  of  the  large  extent  of 
bald  head,  the  heavy  features  and  bulky  figure  of  the 
anglicized  American,  the  almost  ferocious  severity  of 
his  glance,  the  stiff  formality  of  the  coat  and  collar  of 
a  certain  year.  These  were  all  doubtless  facts  of  a  certain 
kind,  but  negative,  almost  irrelevant  facts,  —  facts  interest 
ing  chiefly  as  illustrating  the  recalcitrant  nature  of  the 
stuff  of  which  human  beings  are  wrought.  The  Henry 
James  of  Blanche  is  a  thinker,  seen  in  profile  with  the 
mild  gravity  of  finely  moulded  features  and  far-seeing 
glance.  It  is  a  moment  of  thoughtful  concentration.  He 
is  reflecting,  it  may  be,  upon  that  Future  Life  which  he 
thought  guaranteed  to  human  desire  by  the  boundless 
resourcefulness  of  the  human  spirit.  And  behind  him 
in  a  rich  and  delicate  pattern  of  leaves,  we  feel  how,  to 
his  artist-imagination,  experience  flowers  endlessly  with 
the  sense  of  our  cosmic  relations,  the  perception  of  which 
is  the  very  process  of  conscious  life.5  The  James  seen 
by  Sargent  is  the  creator  of  human  beings  and  the 
presenter  of  their  dramas.  He  is  shown  here  in  the 
plenitude  of  creative  power.  Straight  forward  he  looks 
from  the  place  where  he  sits  established  in  all  the  solid 
amplitude  of  entire  possession.  There  is  something 
almost  portentous  in  his  glance.  It  is  so  penetrating  as 

4  There  are  indeed  several  most  artistic  photographs  of  James, 
notably  those  by  Hoppe  (reproduced  in  "The  Craftsman,"  25:  31) 
and  Coburn  (see  "The  Bookman,"  38:122  and  "The  Century," 
87:150). 

5  Certain  views  of  Henry  James  in  regard  to  life  after  death 
were  published   in    1910   in   "Harper's    Bazaar,"   44:26.     They 
appear  in  condensed  form  in  "Current  Literature,"  48  :  303-4. 


Eliminations  105 


to  cause  uneasiness  were  it  not  for  the  large  indulgence, 
the  gentleness  of  the  philosopher,  shed,  as  it  were,  from 
his  shining  brows.  His  eyes  are  darkened  with  thought, 
but  his  large  features  glow  with  the  joy  o.f  successful 
labor,  of  understanding  satisfied. 

If  I  have  read  more  into  these  portraits  than  is  there 
in  presented  items,  or  if  the  painters  have  read  more 
into  the  face  of  the  author  than  they  actually  saw,  we 
can  hardly  have  gone  further  than  the  characters  of 
James  in  their  interpretation  of  one  another's  appearance. 
Thus  Milly  Theale  learns  from  the  mere  look  of  Kate 
Croy,  a  person  not  given  to  easy  betrayals,  the  substan 
tial  fact  that  Merton  Densher  has  returned  from 
America.  "Kate  had  remained  in  the  window,  very 
handsome  and  upright,  the  outer  dark  framing  in  a  highly 
favourable  way  her  summery  simplicities  and  lightnesses 
of  dress.  .  .  .  She  hovered  there  as  with  conscious  eyes 
and  some  added  advantage.  Then  indeed,  with  small 
delay,  her  friend  sufficiently  saw.  The  conscious  eyes, 
the  added  advantage  were  but  those  she  had  now  always 
at  command, — those  proper  to  the  person  Milly  knew  as 
known  to  Merton  Densher.  It  was  for  several  seconds 
again  as  if  the  total  of  her  identity  had  been  that  of  the 
person  known  to  him — a  determination  having  for  result 
another  sharpness  of  its  own.  Kate  had  positively  but 
to  be  there  just  as  she  was  to  tell  her  he  had  come  back. 
It  seemed  to  pass  between  them  in  fine  without  a  word 
that  he  was  in  London,  that  he  was  perhaps  only  round 
the  corner.  .  .  ."6  Once  more  we  come  back  to  the 
"economy"  of  a  writer  whose  description  is  so  indis 
tinguishable  from  the  narrative  itself.  Of  course  this 
method  requires  an  especially  careful  selection  of  the 
few  items  of  appearance  noted,  since  each  bears  so  heavy 

«  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  272-273. 


io6  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

a  burden  of  interpretation.  James's  later  work  in  this 
respect  compares  with  his  earlier  as  the  descriptions  of 
Sterne  compare  with  those  of  Smollett.  We  have  much 
more  data  for  the  appearance  of  Commodore  Trunnion 
than  for  that  of  Uncle  Toby,  but  we  feel  much  better 
acquainted  with  Uncle  Toby,  the  details  given  in  his  case 
are  so  carefully  chosen  for  what  intimate  things  they  tell 
us  about  him.  In  the  later  work  of  James  we  feel  better 
acquainted  with  the  characters  than  in  his  early  work 
since  everything  that  is  told  us  about  them  is  so  imme 
diately  relevant.  Facts  are  given  us  only  so  fast  as  we 
can  digest  them.  But  they  are  given  us  so  unobtrusively 
that  we  are  partly  or  wholly  unaware  of  the  means  by 
which  they  are  conveyed.  This  change  in  method  might 
be  likened  to  the  change  which  Strether  observed  in 
Chad  Newsome.  "He  had  formerly  with  a  great  deal 
of  action  expressed  very  little;  and  he  now  expressed 
whatever  was  necessary  with  almost  none  at  all."  It  is 
not  that  in  his  earlier  characterizations  James  expresses 
very  little;  but  that,  in  his  later  ones,  with  so  few  items, 
he  manages  to  express  so  much  more. 

The  same  evolution  is  observable  in  his  treatment  of  the 
setting.  In  the  beginning  he  was  precise  and  extensive  in 
his  notation  of  the  details  of  setting.  Dealing  largely 
with  European  scenes,  he  shows  the  boundless  hunger 
of  the  tourist  for  the  picturesque  and  the  pride  of  a 
youthful  tourist  in  displaying  his  expert  knowledge  of 
the  old  world.  Names  of  places  are  scattered  through 
the  story  with  lavish  profusion.  Public  monuments  and 
private  dwellings  come  in  alike  for  enthusiastic  descrip 
tion.  In  the  later  stories  there  is  no  less  rich  a  sense  of 
"Europe,"  but  it  is  conveyed  in  a  manner  much  less 
ostentatious.  Every  detail  admitted  has  now  its  direct 
bearing  on  the  particular  narrative  and  its  intimate  revela- 


Eliminations  107 


tion  of  the  characters  involved.  "Europe"  is  now  a 
society;  a  world  peopled  with  individuals  living  their 
natural  and  unpublished  lives.  Hotels  and  churches  have 
yielded  almost  entirely  to  private  homes  as  the  scene  of 
the  story;  and  differences  in  atmosphere  are  now 
rendered  much  more  delicately  at  a  much  smaller  outlay 
of  itemized  description.  The  Parisian  home  of  Madame 
de  Vionnet  is  by  no  possibility  to  be  confused  in  the 
reader's  mind  with  that  of  Maria  Gostrey  or  that  of 
Chad  Newsome.  And  yet  there  is  very  little  offered  in 
any  of  these  cases  for  identification  by  the  police.  An 
instance  of  what  James  can  do  for  a  domestic  interior 
without  actually  describing  it  is  the  account  of  Merton 
Densher's  impressions  of  Aunt  Maud's  London  resi 
dence  : 

Lancashire  Gate  looked  rich — that  was  all  the  effect. 
.  .  .  He  hadn't  known — and  in  spite  of  Kate's  repeated 
reference  to  her  own  rebellions  of  taste — that  he  should 
"mind"  so  much  how  an  independent  lady  might  decorate 
her  house.  .  .  .  Never,  he  felt  sure,  had  he  seen  so  many 
things  so  unanimously  ugly — operatively,  ominously  so 
cruel.  .  .  .  He  couldn't  describe  and  dismiss  them  col 
lectively,  call  them  either  Mid- Victorian  or  Early — not 
being  certain  they  were  rangeable  under  one  rubric.  It 
was  only  manifest  they  were  splendid  and  were  further 
more  conclusively.  British.  They  constituted  an  order 
and  abounded  invfare  material — precious  woods,  metals, 
stuffs,  stones.  He  had  never  dreamed  of  anything  so 
fringed  and  scalloped,  so  buttoned  and  corded,  drawn 
everywhere  so  tight  and  curled  everywhere  so  thick.  He 
had  never  dreamed  of  so  much  gilt  and  glass,  so  much 
satin  and  plush,  so  much  rosewood  and  marble  and 
malachite.  But  it  was  above  all  the  solid  forms,  the 
wasted  finish,  the  misguided  cost,  the  general  attestation 
of  morality  and  money,  a  good  conscience  and  a  big 
balance.  These  things  finally  represented  for  him  a  por- 


io8  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

lentous  negation  of  his  own  world  of  thought — of  which, 
for  that  matter,  in  presence  of  them,  he  became  as  for 
the  first  time  hopelessly  aware.  They  revealed  it  to  him 
by  their  merciless  difference.7 

Many  sentences  are  omitted  from  this  account  in  my 
citation,  but  none  that  add  anything  material  to  our 
knowledge  of  Aunt  Maud's  house.  They  all  have  refer 
ence  to  Densher's  reactions  in  presence  of  this  sumptuous 
ugliness.  And  that  is  the  "note"  of  all  the  later  work: 
the  setting  is  given  us  through  the  reactions  of  the  people 
in  it,  and  carries  all  the  color  of  their  personality.  In 
the  case  of  Ricks  in  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton"  we  are 
given  several  more  precise  details,  as  is  fitting  to  a  story 
having  for  its  material  subject  the  furnishings  of  a  house. 
We  learn  of  the  "single  plate  of  the  window," — the  "one 
flat  glass  sliding  up  and  down,"  with  certain  items  of 
the  wall  paper  and  the  doors.  But  this  is  merely  the 
slender  base  from  which  Fleda  conducts  her  higher 
operations  of  fancy,  on  the  subject  of  the  maiden-aunt 
who  had  informed  this  dwelling.  There  is  nothing  in 
which  the  difference  between  Fleda  and  Mrs.  Gereth  is 
brought  out  more  delicately  and  yet  more  surely  than  in 
Mrs.  Gereth's  inability  to  feel  the  beauty  of  this  maiden- 
aunt  of  Fleda's  sympathetic  reconstruction.  It  was  here 
that,  as  much  as  anywhere,  Fleda  "took  the  highest  line 
and  the  upper  hand."8  And  thus  we  see  again  how 
description  is  made  contributive  to  characterization, — 
nay,  to  the  idea  of  the  book. 

As  for  natural  scenery,  there  is  practically  none  in 
the  stories  of  James.  That  is  significant  enough.  How 
ever  much  he  may  have  loved  mountains  or  the  sea,  the 

7  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  77-79. 

8  Vol.  X,  p.  248. 


Eliminations  109 


undomesticated  aspects  of  nature — and  as  to  this  I  can 
not  say — there  was  surely  no  place  for  these  wild  beauties 
among  the  clipped  yews  and  formal  terraces  of  his  gar 
den.  No  one,  in  reading  Henry  James,  will  have  to 
skip  the  descriptions  of  nature.  They  were,  of  all 
luxuries  in  fiction,  the  first  indicated  for  elimination. 

Of  course  we  must  not  give  the  impression  that  all  the 
limitations  of  James  were  deliberately  assumed  for  the 
sake  of  his  art.  Some  of  them  are  no  doubt  simply  the 
limitations  of  his  outlook.  Such  is  notably  the  lack  in 
all  his  work  of  what  is  sometimes  called  a  larger  social 
consciousness.  By  this  is  meant  a  realization  of  society 
as  a  whole  made  up  of  more  or  less  disparate  groups, 
with  some  understanding  of  the  industrial  and  economic 
conditions  that  determine  the  life  of  each  group  and  their 
relations  to  one  another,  and  some  active  concern  for  the 
solution  of  our  social  problems.  I  suppose  it  is  axiomatic 
that  such  a  social  consciousness  is,  if  not  the  discovery 
of  our  time,  at  least  one  of  the  most  striking  marks  of 
recent  literature.  And  it  does  set  a  writer  somewhat 
apart  to  be  lacking  in  social  consciousness  in  a  period 
that  has  produced  "Die  Weber!'  "Les  Bienfaiteurs" 
"Widowers'  Houses"  and  "Strife";  "The  New  Machia- 
velli,"  "Fraternity,"  "The  Man  of  Property"  and  "The 
Harbor." 

Many  will  be  found  to  declare  that  no  literature — 
perhaps  no  art  of  any  kind — can  be  truly  great  in  our 
day  that  is  lacking  in  this  essential  element.  It  is  a 
point  upon  which  I  cannot  pronounce  with  authority. 
I  certainly  feel  the  lack  in  James.  But  there  is  one  thing 
of  which  I  am  confident.  Good  art  cannot  be  made  out 
of  materials  of  which  one  is  not  a  master.  Much  harm 
comes  to  art  from  the  attempt  to  handle  material  that 
is  not  one's  own  simply  because  it  is  supposed  to  be 


no  The  Method  of  Henry  James 


"the  thing."  This  very  social  consciousness,  when  arti 
ficially  taken  on,  or  applied  to  life  in  a  doctrinaire  fashion, 
or  unaccompanied  by  competent  knowledge,  has  been  the 
spoiling  of  much  good  art,  in  poetry,  in  the  drama  and 
the  novel. 

It  happens  that  Henry  James  grew  up  in  a  world  of 
thought  to  which  these  ideas  seem  to  have  been  alien. 
His  father  was  a  man  of  independent  means,  not  engaged 
in  business,  whose  occupation  was  the  pursuit  of  culture 
and  the  perfecting  of  a  mystical  philosophy.  He  was  in 
no  hurry  to  have  his  sons  make  choice  of  an  occupation ; 
he  was  loath  to  have  them  come  to  a  decision,  lest  any 
given  calling  might  limit  the  expansive  life  of  the<soul. 
In  their  household  circle,  the  economic  arts  of  produc 
tion  and  distribution  seemed  as  dull  and  sordid  as  the 
arts  of  the  kitchen.  So  far  from  having  formed  an  idea 
of  "labor"  and  the  laboring  class,  they  do  not  appear  to 
have  taken  into  their  horizon  even  the  business  man  and 
the  banker  except  as  persons  living  on  their  incomes,  and 
generally  in  Europe.  Henry  James  gravitated  inevitably 
towards  the  society  of  the  leisured  and  well-to-do,  and 
among  them,  the  clever  and  highly  cultivated.  These  he 
knew,  with  their  complement  of  servants,  bookbinders 
and  telegraphers,9  and  with  the  outer  fringe  of  artists, 
tourists,  and  the  shabby  genteel  of  European  capitals.10 
It  is  idle  to  speculate  on  the  greater  social  significance  he 
might  have  had  with  a  wider  social  horizon.  He  gave 
us  a  thorough  and  beautiful  rendering  of  what  he  knew; 
and  that,  I  must  believe,  is  the  one  thing  required  by  art. 

9  "In  the  Cage." 

10  "The  Pupil." 


IX 
TONE 

The  same  ideal  which  leads  James  to  this  simplification 
of  the  elements  of  the  story  expresses  itself  in  a  related 
character  of  his  writings, — the  consistency,  or  uniformity, 
of  tone.  I  say  consistency,  or  uniformity ;  but  any  one  is 
free  to  say  monotony  who  finds  that  these  eliminations 
are  in  effect  but  limitations. 

To  a  large  extent  the  uniformity  of  tone  reflects  simply 
the  uniformity  of  subject-matter.  You  do  not  find  here 
the  tone  of  low  or  violent  passion  since  you  are  not 
dealing  at  all  with  people  who  employ  such  a  tone. 
There  are  no  low  humors,  and  accordingly  no  sugges 
tion  of  the  manner  of  low  comedy.  The  crude,  the 
pathetic,  the  sentimental,  in  character  and  situation,  are 
all  ruled  out,  together  with  the  atmospheres  they  carry 
with  them. 

But  the  uniformity  of  tone  is  not  simply  a  result  of 
homogeneity  of  the  characters.  With  range  of  characters 
as  limited  as  you  please,  the  author  would  still  be  free 
to  assume  the  tone  of  satire,  of  cynicism,  of  anxious 
morality,  of  sentimental  concern.  But  James  never  takes 
advantage  of  this  liberty.  He  is  never  sarcastic,  never 
lachrymose,  never  moralistic.  There  is  never  any  suffu 
sion  of  his  work  with  a  cosmic  poesy  such  as  distinguishes 
the  work  of  Hardy.  It  is  always  unmistakably  the  tone 
of  prose  in  which  he  speaks.  He  has  but  a  mild  tincture 
of  that  gusto — that  blend  of  irony  and  boyish  high 
spirits — that  makes  the  family  likeness  of  male  English 
novelists  from  Fielding  and  Scott  to  Dickens  and  Mere- 


< 


112  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

dith.  The  tone  of  James  is  the  tone  of  indoors  and  the 
tea-table.  There  is  about  him  no  smell  of  peat  or  sage 
brush.  You  cannot  imagine  him  peddling  Bibles  in  Spain 
or  "squatting"  in  California  among  the  rattlesnakes.  You 
cannot  imagine  him  taking  an  interest  in  the  soul  of  a 
planter  up  some  river  of  Borneo.  His  words  are  never 
scattered  and  disarranged  by  any  breath  of  the  boisterous 
Atlantic. 

Here  again  we  are  reminded  of  the  importance  of 
French  influences  in  his  training.  All  that  we  have  just 
said  of  James  may  be  said  of  Mr.  George  Moore.  We 
recall  that  Mr.  Moore  wanted  to  be  a  painter ;  wanted  it 
earnestly,  it  seems,  and  actually  made  a  trial  under  Pari 
sian  masters.  But  we  need  not  refer  this  quality  in  either 
case  specifically  to  the  influence  of  French  painting.  This 
uniformity  of  tone — this  sacrifice  of  so  many  of  the 
colors  favored  by  English  literary  artists  to  an  elegant 
consistency  of  effect — is  a  quality  which  has  ever  been 
highly  prized  by  French  writers,  lovers  of  good  form 
and  refinement.  And  it  is  a  quality  which  in  every 
age  has  yielded  in  England  to  the  love  of  variety,  intensity 
and  vigor.  Witness  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare,  witness 
Thackeray  and  Browning.  Witness  even  Congreve  and 
Pope,  who,  in  a  period  nominally  devoted  to  the  bienr- 
seances,  fell  so  far  short  of  the  simple  good  taste  of 
Moliere  and  Boileau.  With  the  early  periods,  whether 
in  France  or  elsewhere,  James  would  seem  to  have  been 
very  little  acquainted  if  we  may  judge  from  his  allusions. 
But  with  nineteenth-century  French  writers  (including 
the  Gallicized  Turgenieff)  he  was  on  terms  of  inti 
macy;  and  it  is  among  them  that  one  finds  the  closest 
resemblance  to  his  ideal  in  tone.  Indeed  his  elimination 
of  all  the  more  markedly  subjective  colors  in  his  writing 
may  be  regarded  as  but  a  corollary  of  the  French  rule 


Tone 


of  objective  realism.  In  his  case,  however,  as  with  the 
main  French  tradition,  I  feel  this  to  be  more  an  expres 
sion  of  temperament  than  subjection  to  any  doctrine. 

The  simple  fact  is  that  James  was  extremely  fastidious. 
If  sometimes  we  find  him  violating  good  taste,  as  it  must 
have  seemed  to  him  —  as  in  "The  American"  by  the  oaths 
of  his  hero  or  by  the  mention  of  Swiss  manure  heaps, 
we  may  be  sure  this  was  the  concession  to  doctrine.  This 
was  an  attempt,  by  sacrifice  of  his  own  feelings,  to 
propitiate  the  spirit  of  Balzac.  Later  on,  I  suppose,  he 
developed  an  interpretation  of  the  gospel  which  recon 
ciled  realism  with  good  taste,  at  least  for  him.  No  one 
writer  can  treat  the  whole  of  life.  Each  one  must  devote 
himself  to  those  aspects  which  he  best  understands.  Such 
was  the  opinion  of  Maupassant  quoted  with  seeming 
approval  by  Mr.  James  in  his  essay  on  the  French  writer.1 
And  so  the  fastidious  American  was  absolved  from  all 
commerce  with  the  ugly  and  the  cheap,  his  forte  being 
the  delineation  of  the  fair  and  the  fine.  More  and  more, 
with  the  fixing  of  his  taste,  he  chooses  subjects  to  which 
the  cheap  and  the  ugly  will  not  be  relevant.  More  and 
more  he  chooses  situations  involving  people  of  high  good- 
breeding  and  fineness  of  instinct.  If  there  are  vulgar 
people  involved  —  like  Jim  Pocock  in  "The  Ambassadors," 
like  most  of  the  characters  in  "What  Maisie  Knew"  — 
they  come  to  us  strained  through  the  consciousness  of 
people  not  vulgar,  and  with  all  material  offensiveness 
eliminated  in  the  process.  Our  concern  is  for  the  other 
sort  ;  and  as  for  the  author  himself,  we  know  how  largely 
he  sinks  his  own  view  in  that  of  his  Strethers  and  Fledas. 

One  thing  particularly  displeasing  to  such  fastidious 
ness  is  any  weight  of  emphasis  incompatible  with  the 
nicest  good  taste.  Neither  joy  nor  sorrow,  liking  nor 

1  In  "Partial  Portraits." 


ii4  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

dislike,  neither  fear,  desire  nor  anxiety  must  be  given 
strident  utterance.  For  we  are  the  most  civil  beings  that 
ever  took  tea  together;  and  we  owe  it  to  one  another's 
feelings  to  keep  our  voices  down  to  a  sociable  pitch.  If 
readers  get  the  impression  that  the  people  of  James  are 
without  strong  feeling,  this  is  largely  because  of  their 
preternatural  good  breeding.  A  careful  reading  of  such 
a  story  as  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton"  will  reveal  the  pres 
ence  throughout  of  a  very  strong  undercurrent  of  emo 
tion.  But  except  at  one  or  two  critical  moments  it  keeps 
well  hidden  beneath  the  surface. 

There  is  another  reason  for  the  comparative  want  of 
expression  of  feeling  in  James.  His  characters  are  most 
of  the  time  engaged  in  a  strenuous  exercise  of  their  wits. 
However  much  their  happiness  may  depend  upon  the 
solution  of  the  problem  that  faces  them,  they  must  first 
solve  the  problem;  and  the  energy  concentrated  on  this 
intellectual  process  is  so  much  energy  diverted  from  the 
channels  of  emotional  expression.  It  is  also  true  that 
these  people  are  generally  actors,  with  good  reasons  for 
not  betraying  their  feelings  to  one  another. 

But  I  had  rather  dwell  here  upon  the  other  considera 
tion.  It  is  to  a  large  degree  the  gentleman's  ideal  of 
tenue  that  requires  him  to  maintain  a  quiet  evenness  of 
tone  however  strong  his  feelings  may  be.  And  the  author 
himself,  in  those  passages  where  he  shows  his  people  off 
their  guard,  feels  the  obligation  of  treating  them — and 
the  reader — in  the  same  tone  of  smooth  good  breeding. 
In  no  respect  have  we  a  better  gauge  of  the  maturity  of 
the  work  than  in  this  matter  of  emotional  emphasis, 
which  shows  a  graduated  decline  from  the  first  of  the 
novels  to  the  date2  at  which  we  may  regard  the  method 
of  James  as  fixed.  In  another  connection  I  shall  give 

2  Say  1896,  the  date  of  "Poynton." 


Tone  7/5 

instances  of  the  heavier  emphasis  of  "The  American." 
Here  I  will  content  myself  with  citing  the  words  in  which 
are  recorded  Rowland  Mallet's  feelings  when  he  learned 
of  the  engagement  of  Mary  Garland  to  Roderick  Hudson. 
It  was  on  shipboard.  "Rowland  sat  staring;  though  the 
sea  was  calm  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  ship  gave  a  great 
dizzying  lurch.  But  in  a  moment  he  continued  to  answer 
coherently."3  The  early  manner  is  here  perhaps  all  the 
more  striking — at  any  rate  it  is  all  the  more  interesting — 
because  of  the  author's  evident  wish  to  indicate  his 
character's  unusual  self-control.  His  character  was 
indeed  self-controlled;  but  the  author  indulges  for  him 
in  hyperbole  to  which  he  would  never  in  later  years  have 
committed  himself.  When  in  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton" 
we  have  had  a  particularly  fine  display  of  courageous 
acting  on  the  part  of  Fleda,  and  the  author  wishes  to  let 
us  know  that  she  is  at  the  emotional  breaking-point,  this 
is  the  quiet  way  he  does  it:  "At  last  .  .  .  she  made 
a  dash  for  the  stairs  and  ran  up."4  And  it  is  not  often 
in  this  later  period  that  James  will  record  so  animatedly 
physical  a  manifestation  of  feeling  as  that,  even  of 
characters  "off  the  stage"  like  Fleda. 

This  subdued  tone  is  in  keeping  with  the  general  atmos 
pheric  stillness  which  results  from  the  narrative  method 
of  "revelation."  A  more  excited  manner  would  accord 
with  a  story  full  of  the  bustle  of  action  or  the  clamor 
of  passion.  But  here  we  are  bidden  to  follow  with  a 
quiet  intentness  the  growth  of  an  idea.  We  have  no 
vagrant  energy  to  spare  for  the  mere  pomp  and  circum 
stance  of  life.  What  we  have  most  need  of,  after  good 
taste  on  guard,  is  a  jealous  intellectual  self-possession. 

There  is  no  denying  that,   for  most  readers,  James 

a  Vol.  I,  p.  82. 
4  Vol.  X,  p.  103. 


n6  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

carries  too  far  this  sterilizing  or  deodorizing  process. 
Even  his  fondest  admirers  have  moments  of  irritation 
with  him  for  what  must  seem  his  excessive  good  breed 
ing,  his  almost  spinsterly  fear  of  any  note  too  loud,  any 
scent  too  strong.  However  much  we  may  love  order  and 
regularity,  the  pruned  and  weeded  garden,  we  cannot 
but  remember  that  some  of  our  most  pleasing  impres 
sions  of  beauty  have  been  received  from  straggling  weeds 
that  have  escaped  the  gardener's  hoe  and  come  to  flower 
in  saucy  disregard  of  authority.  In  English  fiction,  at 
any  rate,  some  of  the  finest  effects  are  those  which  have 
come  by  accident.  They  are  effects  of  inspiration  rather 
than  of  design.  Genius  has  blundered  upon  them  almost 
unawares.  Or  at  least  they  were  possible  only  to  the 
artist  painting  with  a  broad  stroke,  with  a  large  free 
motion  of  the  arm. 

Not  only  was  the  ideal  of  James  a  different  one.  He 
seems  to  have  had,  in  general,  little  patience  with  these 
triumphs  of  straying  genius.  Indeed  he  seems  often  to 
have  been  incapable  of  recognizing  them  when  he  saw 
them.  It  would  scarcely  do  to  describe  Thomas  Hardy 
as  a  straying  genius,  however  triumphant  a  one  we  may 
grant  him.  But  the  attitude  of  James  towards  Hardy 
will  sufficiently  illustrate  his  general  insensibility  to  the 
broader  style.  It  may  be  that  Mr.  James  was  later  con 
verted;  but  it  must  stand  as  symptomatic  that  a  first 
reading  of  "Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd"  left  him 
cold.5  While  that  novel  "at  a  cursory  glance,  has  a  rather 
promising  air  of  life  and  warmth/'  he  is  obliged  to  state 
that  "it  has  a  fatal  lack  of  magic."  It  is  indeed,  he 
acknowledges,  a  very  clever  book,  and  one  having  "a 
certain  aroma  of  the  meadows  and  lanes — a  natural 

5  So  it  appears  from  his  unsigned  review  in  "The  Nation," 
Dec.  24,  1874. 


Tone  117 

relish  for  harvestings  and  sheep- washings."  Otherwise 
it  is  scarcely  genuine.  His  account  of  the  plot  is  most 
illuminating.  He  enumerates  the  principal  characters, 
the  several  men  and  the  heroine,  Bathsheba  Ever  dene. 
"They  are  all  in  love  with  her,"  he  says,  "and  the  young 
lady  is  a  flirt,  and  encourages  them  all.  .  .  .  We  cannot 
say  that  we  either  understand  or  like  Bathsheba.  She 
is  a  lady  of  the  inconsequential,  wilful,  mettlesome  type 
which  has  lately  become  so  much  the  fashion  for  heroines, 
and  of  which  Mr.  Charles  Reade  is  in  a  manner  the 
inventor.  .  .  .  But  Mr.  Hardy's  embodiment  of  it  seems 
to  us  to  lack  reality;  he  puts  her  through  the  Charles 
Reade  paces,  but  she  remains  alternately  vague  and 
coarse,  and  seems  always  artificial.  This  is  Mr.  Hardy's 
trouble;  he  rarely  gets  beyond  ambitious  artifice — the 
mechanical  simulation  of  heat  and  depth  and  wisdom  that 
are  absent.  .  .  .  Everything  human  in  the  book  strikes 
us  as  factitious  and  insubstantial;  the  only  things  we 
believe  in  are  the  sheep  and  the  dogs." 

Ah  well!  We  need  not  hold  him  too  responsible  for 
an  opinion  expressed  in  1874  in  the  Tartarly  manner  of 
the  periodical  which  had  assumed,  in  America,  the  auto 
cratic  mantle  of  the  historical  English  reviews.  Only, 
we  feel  that  he  does  betray  here  an  insensibility  that  is 
characteristic,  the  same  insensibility  that  leads  him  to 
question  the  greatness  of  Charles  Dickens.  There  are 
certain  large  ranges  of  life — and  not  so  very  remote 
from  common  experience — in  which  he  seems  to  be  sim 
ply  not  at  home.  Otherwise  he  would  not  find  it  so  easy 
to  dispose  of  Bathsheba  Everdene  with  his  label  of  flirt 
and  to  dismiss  everything  human  in  this  masterpiece  as 
factitious  and  insubstantial.  I  suppose  the  fastidious 
taste  of  James  could  not  put  up  with  a  certain  awkward 
ness,  a  certain  countrified  homespun  manner  of  Hardy's, 


n8  The  Method  of  Henry  James 


and  that,  finding  heat  and  warmth  and  wisdom  conveyed 
in  a  manner  so  uncouth,  he  was  forced  in  self-defense  to 
the  assumption  of  their  all  being  but  a  mechanical  simu 
lation.  Instead  of  being  too  clever,  Hardy  was  simply 
not  clever  enough,  or  not  polite  enough,  to  meet  the 
exacting  standard  of  his  critic. 

But  it  was  funny  indeed  for  Hardy,  of  all  persons, 
to  suffer  the  imputation  of  "a  fatal  lack  of  magic." 
Magic  is,  I  suppose,  the  one  thing  in  a  book  least  sus 
ceptible  of  explanation,  an  effect  not  to  be  attained 
through  any  process  of  design  and  arrangement.  It  is 
the  one  quality  which  Hardy  shows  more  often  than  any 
other  English  novelist.  And  it  is  a  quality  which  only 
the  most  superstitious  devotees  of  James  would  insist 
on  ascribing  to  their  idol.  (His  charm  is  unmistakable, 
and  one  must  confess  the  at  least  etymological  associa 
tion  of  magic  and  charm.)  It  is  seldom  that  his  steady 
recitative  breaks  into  the  flowing  curves  of  the  aria,  that 
sheer  beauty  disengages  itself  from  the  dense  pattern 
of  thought  and  experience.  It  is  seldom  that  the  reader 
is  caught  and  swept  along,  as  so  often  by  Hardy,  in  the 
swift  broad  current  of  simple  passion.  That  is  not  pos 
sible  save  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  much-prized  self-posses 
sion. 

There  are  times  in  which  the  impatient  reader  is  ready 
to  damn  his  self-possession!  We  have  epithets  for 
describing  the  man  whose  manner  is  too  perfect,  who 
will  never  join  us  in  any  lapse  from  the  drawing-room 
code.  If  we  refrain  from  applying  these  epithets,  it  is 
because  in  the  main  we  prefer  good  taste  to  bad,  the  quiet 
to  the  loud;  and  because  we  have  so  often  found  the 
most  robust  qualities  lying  beneath  the  exquisite  surface 
of  refinement.  We  may  wish  to  remind  our  friend  that 
one  need  not  show  himself  robustious  in  order  to  show 


Tone  up 

himself  robust.  We  may  be  inclined  to  point  out  that 
the  tea-table  is  all  the  better  for  an  occasional  excursion 
to  the  woods  or  even  the  tavern.  But  in  the  main  we 
are  content  to  visit  the  woods  with  Cooper  and  the  tavern 
with  Smollett,  and  to  take  our  tea  with  James.  We  must 
not  let  an  occasional  irritation  blind  us  to  the  rare  beauty 
of  tone  which  James  was  perhaps  the  first  to  demonstrate 
as  a  possibility  for  English  fiction.  The  consistency  upon 
which  we  have  dwelt  is  a  beauty  implying  many  others. 
There  is  always  positive  enduring  charm  about  work  in 
which  the  materials  are  all  so  choice,  in  which  the  pieces 
are  fitted  together  with  such  patient  and  jealous  care. 
We  cannot  grow  tired  of  these  subdued  harmonies  of 
color,  of  this  rare  impeccable  finish  and  glaze.  However 
much  we  may  admire  the  vivid  canvases  of  the  Salle 
Rubens,  we  are  sure  to  return  often  enough  to  the 
cabinetwork,  the  tapestries  and  the  porcelains  of  the 
Musee  Cluny. 


X 

ROMANCE 

The  elaborate  manipulation  of  suspense  by  James  sug 
gested  comparison  with  the  romantic  genre  of  the  detec 
tive  story.  And  in  more  ways  than  one  the  novels  of 
James  make  on  me  at  least  the  impression  of  romances. 
I  have  to  confess  at  once  to  a  considerable  insensibility 
to  the  charms  of  ordinary  romance.  But  everyone  has 
some  craving  for  romance;  and  this  craving  is  largely 
satisfied  in  my  own  case  by  the  stories  of  James.  And 
here  I  do  not  refer  to  the  obviously  and  technically 
romantic  manner  of  such  a  tale  as  "A  Passionate  Pil 
grim"  nor  to  the  romantic  circumstances  in  the  plot  of 
"The  American."  I  have  in  mind  that  sober  work  of 
later  years  in  which  is  carried  furthest  the  cultivation  of 
psychological  niceties. 

This  may  seem  a  paradox,  considering  how  generally 
psychological  niceties  are  associated  with  the  notion  of 
realism.  But  the  romantic  impression  here  arises  pre 
cisely  from  the  extreme  to  which  this  tendency  of  James 
is  pushed.  The  motives  of  his  characters  are  refined 
to  such  a  point  as  to  make  them  seem  not  characters  in 
"real  life." 

I  should  be  the  last  to  pronounce  his  characters  not 
true  to  life.  One  reader  at  least  has  had  the  good  fortune 
actually  to  know  in  person  Maggie  Verver  and  Kate  Croy 
and  Fleda  Vetch.  The  circumstances  may  not  have  been 
the  same — since  life  is  often  so  much  less  generous  of 
material  than  fiction — but  the  same  qualities  were  present 


Romance  121 


to  work  upon  whatever  material  offered.  And  that  is 
surely  enough  to  make  one  hesitate  to  question  the  reality 
of  anything  in  James. 

But  still,  how  many  of  us  are  familiar  with  a  society 
so  "highly  civilized"  as  this  he  paints  ?  Figures  like  these 
are  at  most  the  rare  exceptions,  and  are  not  often  accom 
panied  by  satellites  who  can  take  and  give  cues  and  play 
out  the  scene  with  them.  And  again,  as  I  have  said,  life 
does  not  always  furnish  material  rich  enough  for  such 
artists  to  work  in ;  it  is  presumable  that  even  they  cannot 
make  their  lives  one  consistent  pattern  of  this  quality. 
What  one  finds  in  life  are  intimations,  fragments, 
momentary  and  fleeting  sensitivenesses  and  points  of 
view,  that  remind  one  of  the  world  of  James.  These  very 
fine  motives  are  not  apparently  such  as  govern  constantly 
people's  conduct,  even  that  of  those  who  most  suggest 
his  people.  They  seem  indeed  a  luxury  beyond  the  com 
mand  of  even  the  cultivated  in  ordinary  circumstances. 
The  people  we  know  appear  to  be  more  governed  by  pas 
sions,  by  the  primitive  needs,  by  dull  unromantic  obliga 
tions,  by  the  cruder  social  requirements  and  limitations. 
The  professional  character  is  more  prominent  in  ordinary 
life:  our  friends  have  not  put  behind  them  their  ambi 
tions,  have  not  so  completely  divested  themselves  as 
Christopher  Newman  or  Chad  Newsome  of  their  indus 
trial  connections.  And  these  things  count  for  more  in 
every  move  and  calculation.  There  are  things  we  simply 
want:  there  are  things  we  must  have;  there  are  things 
we  must  do  without;  and  all  these  things  are  present 
to  limit  and  condition  our  thought  and  action.  And  then 
there  is  accident:  there  is  that  crude  interposition  of 
chance  that  Mr.  Hardy  can  never  bring  himself  to  forget. 
This  may  not  be  so  important  in  life  as  in  the  stories  of 
Hardy ;  or  it  may  not  be  significant  enough  poetically  to 


122  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

justify  its  extreme  prominence  there.  But  it  is  a  large 
item  in  life ;  it  is  a  feature  without  which  we  can  hardly 
recognize  truth  to  life  in  fiction.  And  it  is  a  most  brutal 
and  disturbing  factor.  It  interferes  with  the  weaving  of 
patterns. 

The  people  we  know  do  not  so  consistently  as  the 
characters  of  James  make  a  conscious  art  of  life.  They 
apply  art  to  this  or  that  detail  or  relation;  but  they 
cannot,  or  they  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  make  their 
whole  life  a  work  of  considered  beauty.  The  people  of 
James  are  mostly  rich  or  in  some  way  raised  above  the 
necessity  of  earning  their  bread.  Their  relationships 
are  greatly  simplified  to  make  them  still  more  free.  They 
are  often  free  from  the  ordinary  scruples  of  the  man 
in  the  street,  free  from  the  New  England  conscience  in 
its  cruder  aspects.  Being  very  clever,  they  are  free  from 
the  intellectual  limitations  under  which  plain  people  labor. 
They  are  preternaturally  free,  living  in  a  moral  vacuum, 
as  it  were.  Moreover,  the  elements  of  life  are  simplified 
to  an  extreme  degree,  everything  in  any  way  irrelevant 
being  shut  out  from  all  consideration.  Under  this  head 
come  the  social  and  religious  movements  and  struggles 
so  prominent  in  George  Eliot  and  Meredith  and  so  many 
of  their  successors.  It  is  perhaps  just  the  irrelevant 
matters — as  they  would  be  for  James — that  create  more 
than  anything  else  in  the  ordinary  novel  the  illusion  of 
everyday  life.  So  that  it  seems  a  rarefied  and  trans 
cendental  atmosphere  into  which  James  lifts  us,  an  atmos 
phere  in  which  there  is  nothing  to  impede  the  free  action 
of  spirits. 

This  atmosphere  he  has  given  a  semi-physical  counter 
part  in  the  air  of  the  English  country-house  which  he  has 
so  often  described,  and  to  which  he  returns  so  regularly 
for  the  scene  of  his  action.  It  is  an  air  of  ample  leisure- 


Romance  123 


liness,  in  which  every  provision  is  made  for  the  conven 
ience  of  people  bent  on  liberal  freedom  of  intercourse. 
Such  was  the  air  in  which  Hyacinth  Robinson  made  his 
long  visit  with  the  Princess  Casamassima ;  that  in  which 
Nanda  Brookenham  and  "Mitchy"  disposed,  under  the 
favoring  auspices  of  Mr.  Longdon,  of  the  fates  of  them 
selves  and  Vanderbank  and  little  Aggie;  that  in  which 
Maggie  Verver  and  her  father  skirted  and  kept  clear  of 
the  subject  of  Maggie's  great  struggle  with  Charlotte 
Stant.  As  James  puts  it  in  one  of  his  tales,1  "Life  was, 
indeed,  well  understood  in  these  great  conditions;  the 
conditions  constituted,  in  their  greatness,  a  kind  of  funda 
mental  facility,  provided  a  general  exemption,  bathed 
the  hour,  whatever  it  was,  in  a  universal  blandness,  that 
were  all  a  happy  solvent  for  awkward  relations."  James 
is  fond  of  evoking  a  sense  of  lingering  afternoon  and 
hours  given  over  to  the  luxury  of  unhurried  reflection. 
"The  day  had  been  warm  and  splendid  and  this  moment 
of  its  wane  .  .  .  which  seemed  to  say  that  whenever,  in 
such  a  house,  there  was  space,  there  was  also,  benignantly, 
time — formed,  of  the  whole  procession  of  the  hours, 
the  one  dearest  to  our  friend,  who,  on  such  occasions, 
interposed  it,  whenever  he  could,  between  the  set  of  im 
pressions  that  ended  and  the  set  that  began  with  'dress 
ing/  .  .  .  The  air  of  the  place,  with  the  immense  house 
all  seated  aloft  in  strength,  robed  with  summer  and 
crowned  with  success,  was  such  as  to  contribute  some 
thing  of  its  own  to  the  poetry  of  early  evening.  This 
visitor,  at  any  rate,  saw  and  felt  it  all  through  one  of 
those  fine  hazes  of  August  that  remind  you  ...  of  the 
artful  gauze  stretched  across  the  stage  of  a  theatre  when 
an  effect  of  mystery,  or  some  particular  pantomimic 

i  "Broken  Wings,"  in  "The  Century,"  December,  1900. 


1 2 4  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

ravishment,  is  desired."  In  such  a  world  as  this,  all 
factitious  impediments  are  smoothed  away,  and  one  may 
give  oneself  up,  undiverted,  to  the  cultivation  of  one's 
"impressions."  No  longer  subject  to  the  humiliating 
conditions  of  animal  life,  one  may  work  out  the  pure 
spiritual  pattern  of  one's  experience ! 

There  is  nothing  about  all  this  that  is  not  "true  to 
life."  Such  happy  combinations  of  character  and  condi 
tion  are  by  no  means  inconceivable;  and  for  the  honor  of 
our  mortal  estate,  we  hope  they  may  be  frequently  found 
in  fact.  But  they  are  not  the  combinations  that  stand 
out  most  prominently  in  a  cursory  survey  of  our  sur 
roundings.  They  must  be,  in  a  work  of  fiction,  the  result 
of  the  most  deliberate  selection.  And  they  must  strike 
most  readers  as  being  artificial  to  a  high  degree.  If  we 
do  not  yield  ourselves  willingly  to  the  spell  of  this  en 
chanter,  if  we  find  ourselves  caught,  in  sterner  moments, 
between  our  realism  and  his  romance,  then  we  are  lost. 
Then  we  are  likely  to  feel  irritation  at  an  author  who  asks 
us  to  take  for  granted  so  perfectly  well-ordered  a  world. 
And  our  irritation  is  likely  to  extend  to  his  people,  who 
seem  to  have  nothing  to  do  but  refine  upon  their  motives, 
or — in  more  brutal  English — split  hairs.  It  is  in  such 
realist,  sceptical  mood  that  we  ask  of  our  friend  "Mitchy" 
in  "The  Awkward  Age,"  is  he  really  a  man?  Would  a 
real  man  have  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded  to  marry 
the  girl  he  didn't  care  for  in  order  to  help  the  girl  he  did 
care  for  to  make  a  better  match?  And  would  he  have 
found  his  comfort  for  life  in  sharing,  like  a  child,  a  secret 
with  the  girl  he  loved — 2  that  being  the  means  by  which 
the  two  were  drawn  into  confederacy?  Is  it  not  a  com 
fort  somewhat  too  metaphysical  for  human  nature's  daily 

2  See  p.  352,  Vol.  IX. 


Romance  125 


need  ?  Or  again — in  dissident  mood— we  grow  impatient 
with  the  Prince  Amerigo  and  Charlotte  Stant  as  they  spin 
the  gossamer  web  of  their  relation  to  Maggie  and  her 
father.  Is  it  a  joke,  this  pretense  of  theirs  that,  because 
Maggie  must  be  allowed  to  pair  off  with  her  father,  they 
should  lend  themselves  to  the  arrangement  by  pairing 
off  themselves  ?  Do  they  take  seriously  this  way  of  justi 
fying  what  in  plain  English  we  call  adultery  ?  We  might 
more  readily  entertain  the  simple  plea  of  their  being  in 
love.  But  being  in  love — in  this  simple  fashion — is  really 
too  vulgar  a  fact,  it  seems,  for  a  world  no  longer  subject 
to  the  conditions  of  animal  life.  Too  vulgar  at  least  for 
mention  in  plain  English.  Meredith  had  a  word,  we 
remind  ourselves,  for  people  of  this  manner  of  thinking. 
He  called  them  sentimentalists — and  he  never  let  them 
off  as  easily  as  they  are  let  off  here.  He  never  let  them 
go  till  he  had  made  them  ridiculous. 

James  has,  in  his  essay  on  Maupassant,  an  interesting 
apology  for  the  psychological  method  in  fiction.  He  is 
speaking  of  Maupassant's  opinion  that  "the  analytic 
fashion  of  telling  a  story"  is  "much  less  profitable  than 
the  simple  epic  manner  which  'avoids  with  care  all  com 
plicated  explanations,  all  dissertations  upon  motives,  and 
confines  itself  to  making  persons  and  events  pass  before 
our  eyes/  " 

When  it  is  a  question  of  an  artistic  process,  [Mr. 
James  rejoins]  we  must  always  distrust  very  sharp  dis 
tinctions,  for  there  is  surely  in  every  method  a  little  of 
every  other  method.  It  is  as  difficult  to  describe  an  action 
without  glancing  at  its  motive,  its  moral  history,  as  it  is 
to  describe  a  motive  without  glancing  at  its  practical 
consequence.  Our  history  and  our  fiction  are  what  we 
do;  but  it  is  surely  not  more  easy  to  determine  where 
what  we  do  begins  than  to  determine  where  it  ends — 


126  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

notoriously  a  hopeless  task.  It  would  take  a  very  subtle 
sense  to  draw  a  hard  and  fast  line  on  the  border-land 
of  explanation  and  illustration.  If  psychology  be  hidden 
in  life,  as,  according  to  M.  de  Maupassant,  it  should  be 
in  a  book,  the  question  immediately  comes  up,  "From 
whom  is  it  hidden?"  From  some  people,  no  doubt,  but 
very  much  less  from  others;  and  all  depends  upon  the 
observer,  the  nature  of  one's  observation,  and  one's 
curiosity.  For  some  people  motives,  relations,  explana 
tions,  are  a  part  of  the  very  surface  of  the  drama,  with 
the  footlights  beating  full  upon  them.  For  me  an  act, 
an  incident,  an  attitude,  may  be  a  sharp,  detached,  iso 
lated  thing,  of  which  I  give  a  full  account  in  saying  that 
such  and  such  a  way  it  came  off.  For  you  it  may  be 
hung  about  with  implications,  with  relations  and  condi 
tions  as  necessary  to  help  you  to  recognize  it  as  the  clothes 
of  your  friends  are  to  help  you  to  recognize  them  in  the 
street.3 

This  critique  appeared  in  1888,  at  the  close  of  the  less 
analytic  period  of  his  writing,  and  is  like  an  anticipatory 
apology  for  the  work  that  was  to  follow.  Only  the  most 
irreconcilable  enemy  of  the  psychological  will  deny  the 
truth  of  his  contention  or  begrudge  him  a  reasonable 
indulgence  in  what  he  calls  himself  "his  irrepressible  and 
insatiable,  his  extravagant  and  immoral,  interest  in  per 
sonal  character  and  in  the  'nature*  of  a  mind."4  But  at 
times  one  has  the  feeling  that  he  has  put  the  cart  before 
the  horse, — that  he  is  no  longer  interested  in  his  friends 
so  much  as  in  the  clothes  they  wear.  He  seems  willing 
altogether  to  neglect  his  act,  or  incident,  or  attitude, 
in  favor  of  "the  implications,  the  relations  and  conditions 
necessary  to  help  you  to  recognise  it."  And  what  is 
particularly  irritating  to  one  in  the  critical  spirit  is  that 

s  "Partial  Portraits,"  pp.  256-257. 

4  Said  in  connection  with  "In  a  Cage,"  Vol.  XI,  p.  xx. 


Romance 


not  only  the  author  but  his  creatures  too  have  so  largely 
abandoned  themselves  to  the  pursuit  of  motive  for  mo 
tive's  sake.  They  seem  at  times  to  pride  themselves  on 
nothing  but  their  cleverness,  their  penetration  of  one 
another's  subtleties,  the  spirit  of  magnificent  "general 
intelligence"  in  which  they  conduct  their  mutual  relations. 
The  height  of  this  self-consciousness  is  reached  in  "The 
Awkward  Age,"  where  it  is  necessary  for  one  of  the 
ringleaders  to  suggest  to  another  member  of  the  coterie 
for  them  "not  to  be  so  awfully  clever  as  to  make  it 
believed  they  can  never  be  simple";5  and  where  not 
merely  the  grown-up  members  of  Mrs.  Brookenham's 
circle  prove  themselves  unfailingly  "wonderful"  or 
"beautiful"  for  the  high  line  they  take,  but  where  even 
the  jeune  file  must  needs  have  a  "system"  of  her  own, — 
and  such  a  system ! — and  must  needs  work  out  with  her 
suitors  refinements  one  degree  higher  than  her  mother's. 

Of  course,  we  at  once  remind  ourselves,  "The  Awk 
ward  Age"  is  intended  for  a  picture  of  decadent  society, 
and  we  must  always  reckon  with  the  gently  ironical  light 
in  which  these  characters  are  supposed  to  be  shown. 
This  consideration  may  apply  still  more  to  "The  Sacred 
Fount"  and  the  "marvel  of  our  civilized  state"  presented 
there  by  the  rival  interpreters.  But  it  does  not  so  clearly 
apply  to  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove"  and  "The  Golden 
Bowl."  There  is  little  to  show  that  the  author  is  not 
offering  us  Charlotte  Stant  and  the  Prince  Amerigo, 
Kate  Croy  and  Merton  Densher,  as  genuine  examples  of 
the  ideally  civilized  state.  And  certainly  the  self-con 
sciousness  and  the  passion  for  analytical  refinements 
indulged  in  by  these  pairs  of  lovers  are  hardly  less  remark 
able  than  those  of  Mrs.  Brookenham's  circle  of  dilettanti. 
I  have  referred  to  the  process  by  which  Charlotte  and  the 

*  Vol.  IX,  p.  303. 


128  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

Prince  persuaded  themselves  of  the  inevitability  and 
beautiful  propriety  of  their  liaison.  "The  whole  demon 
stration,"  it  seemed  to  them,  was  "taking  place  at  a  very 
high  level  of  debate — in  the  cool  upper  air  of  the  finer 
discrimination,  the  deeper  sincerity,  the  larger  philoso 
phy."  6  There  has  never  been  a  more  pointed  illustration 
of  the  "fine  shades"  and  "nice  feelings"  made  ridiculous 
by  Meredith  in  "Sandra  Belloni."  Perhaps  we  are  to 
understand  here  that  such  sophistication  is  the  only 
medium  in  which  a  guilty  love  may  be  made  to  assume 
an  air  of  decency.  But  the  innocence  of  Kate  Croy  and 
Merton  Densher  talks  the  same  language  on  the  occasion 
when  they  first  pledge  themselves  to  one  another.  .  .  . 

They  were  talking,  for  the  time,  with  the  strangest 
mixture  of  deliberation  and  directness,  and  nothing  could 
have  been  more  in  the  tone  of  it  than  the  way  she  at 
last  said — [Well,  it  doesn't  matter  to  us  now  what  she 
said.]  He  gave  a  rather  glazed  smile.  "For  young 
persons  of  a  great  distinction  and  a  very  high  spirit  we're 
a  caution !"  "Yes,"  she  took  it  straight  up :  "we're  hide 
ously  intelligent.  But  there's  fun  in  it  too.  We  must 
get  our  fun.  where  we  can.  I  think,"  she  added,  and  for 
that  matter  not  without  courage,  "our  relation's  quite 
beautiful.  It's  not  a  bit  vulgar.  I  cling  to  some  saving 
romance  in  things."7 

Any  one  who  reads  through  the  conversation  that  follows 
will  agree  that  their  relation  is  not  a  bit  vulgar.  As  for 
Milly  Theale,  while  she  is  not  given  the  same  opportunity 
in  conversation  to  make  fine  points,  she  does  it  abun 
dantly  in  the  privacy  of  her  own  reflections.  She  makes 
the  most  beautiful  of  points  in  regard  to  Kate,  who  lends 
herself  so  well  to  such  treatment.  For  Milly  "had  amuse- 

«  Vol.  XXIII,  pp.  300-301. 
7  Vol.  XIX,  p.  72. 


Romance  129 


ments  of  thought  that  were  like  the  secrecies  of  a  little 
girl  playing  with  dolls  when  conventionally  'too  big/  " 8 
Perhaps  the  reader  would  like  a  bit  of  a  reminder  here 
of  the  nature  of  the  amusements  referred  to.  In  the  fol 
lowing  passage,  Milly  is  interrogating  herself  as  to  her 
sensations  on  realizing  that  the  great  doctor  knows 
"everything"  about  her  condition. 

Now  she  knew  not  only  that  she  didn't  dislike  this — 
the  state  of  being  found  out  about;  but  that  on  the  con 
trary  it  was  truly  what  she  had  come  for,  and  that  for 
the  time  at  least  it  would  give  her  something  firm  to  stand 
on.  She  struck  herself  as  aware,  aware  as  she  had  never 
been,  of  really  not  having  had  from  the  beginning  any 
thing  firm.  It  would  be  strange  for  the  firmness  to  come, 
after  all,  from  her  learning  in  these  agreeable  conditions 
that  she  was  in  some  way  doomed;  but  above  all  it 
would  prove  how  little  she  had  hitherto  had  to  hold  her 
up.  If  she  was  now  to  be  held  up  by  the  mere  process — 
since  that  was  perhaps  on  the  cards — of  being  let  down, 
this  would  only  testify  in  turn  to  her  queer  little  history. 
That  sense  of  loosely  rattling  had  been  no  process  at  all ; 
and  it  was  ridiculously  true  that  her  thus  sitting  there 
to  see  her  life  put  into  the  scales  represented  her  first 
approach  to  the  taste  of  orderly  living.  Such  was  Milly's 
romantic  version — that  her  life,  especially  by  the  fact  of 
this  second  interview,  was  put  into  the  scales;  and  just 
the  best  part  of  the  relation  established  might  have  been, 
for  that  matter,  that  the  great  grave  charming  man  knew, 
had  known  at  once,  that  it  was  romantic,  and  in  that 
measure  allowed  for  it.  Her  only  doubt,  her  only  fear, 
was  whether  he  perhaps  wouldn't  even  take  advantage 
of  her  being  a  little  romantic  to  treat  her  as  romantic 
altogether.9 

It  is  hard  to  realize  that  all  these  fleecy  paradoxes  are 
woven  about  the  hard  question  of  a  bodily  ailment ;  that 

s  Vol.  XIX,  p.  212. 
9  Id.,  p.  236, 


/jo  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

nothing  less  important  hangs  upon  this  doctor's  knowl 
edge  than  the  issue  of  life  and  death. 

One  thing  must  be  granted  for  these  people.  They  are 
not,  like  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  Lyly's  "Euphues," 
playing  a  mere  dialectic  game,  a  game  that  has  no 
beginning  or  end.  However  fine  their  points  may  be, 
they  have  a  relation  to  the  general  point  at  issue.  And 
however  roundabout  a  road  they  may  be  taking,  it  is  a 
road  that  leads  them  towards  their  goal.  This  may  be 
sufficient  to  acquit  them  of  the  charge  of  sentimentalism. 
For  the  sensations  of  the  sentimentalist  are  beautiful  on 
the  sole  condition  of  being  sterile. 

In  any  case  our  irritation  is  a  passing  cloud  in  the  clear 
sky  of  our  felicity.  We  have  but  to  grant  the  premises 
of  this  philosopher,  we  have  but  to  take  his  world  as  he 
offers  it,  to  feel  his  own  luxury  in  the  contemplation  of 
mental  evolutions.  We  love  to  lose  ourselves  in  the 
warm,  thick-sprouting  jungle  of  human  nature  as  he 
conjures  it  up.  He  does  beguile  us  royally.  He  flatters 
us  to  the  top  of  our  bent.  He  stimulates  our  imagination 
like  a  drug.  Our  own  experience  is  colored  by  this 
medium  in  which  we  are  plunged  so  deep.  For  a  long 
time  after  reading  James,  we  find  ourselves  living  in  this 
romantic  world.  We  discover  motives  of  a  refinement 
hitherto  unsuspected.  Our  own  talk  at  the  dancing  club 
or  over  the  bridge  table  is  full  of  significances  ordinarily 
not  discerned.  In  short  we  are  like  the  young  ladies  who 
used  to  read  the  romances  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe  or  Mile,  de 
Scudery,  or  the  young  men  who  still  read  "The  Talis 
man,"  "The  Last  of  the  Mohicans"  and  "The  Count  of 
Monte  Cristo." 


XI 
ETHICS 

An  earlier  chapter  is  devoted  to  the  uniformity  of  tone 
in  James.  It  might  have  been  called  the  neutrality  of 
tone,  since  almost  every  possible  attitude  of  the  author 
liable  to  color  the  subject  is  ruled  out  in  his  ideal.  Among 
other  attitudes  thus  eliminated  is  a  moral  attitude.  And 
so  we  have  as  a  peculiarity  of  James  among  the  masters 
of  fiction  in  English  his  moral  detachment  or  neutrality. 

The  earlier  English  novelists  all  took  pride  in  putting 
themselves  into  the  story.  They  thought  it  right  to  show 
how  much  they  were  concerned  in  the  behavior  of  their 
characters,  to  let  the  reader  know  how  he  should  take 
them  by  means  of  the  tone  of  satire,  of  sentiment,  of 
moralizing  philosophy.  Fielding  takes  frequent  occasion 
to  pause  and  assure  us  he  is  not  recommending  the 
impiety  of  Mr.  Square  or  the  naughtiness  of  Tom  Jones. 
Sterne  is  always  making  love  to  his  characters.  George 
Eliot  and  Meredith  are  still  very  far  from  the  impersonal 
or  "objective"  manner  so  natural  to  French  writers  of 
fiction.  But  in  James  we  have  the  same  neutrality  that 
has  been  since  affected  by  Mr.  George  Moore,  by  Mrs. 
Wharton,  by  Mr.  Galsworthy  and  so  many  other  distin 
guished  English  novelists.  Perhaps  the  likeness  is 
greatest  to  Mr.  Conrad.  For  at  his  best  Conrad,  like 
James,  gets  his  effect  of  neutrality  by  meams  of — or  is 
it  in  spite  of? — his  method  of  presenting  the  whole  action 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  characters.  The  author 
in  this  method  shows  himself  no  parti  pris.  He  passes 


j 32  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

no  judgments  upon  his  creatures.  He  does  not  even  ask 
you  to  pass  judgment;  he  simply  invites  you  to  the 
enjoyment  of  his  picture.  If  Fleda  Vetch's  philosophy 
is  to  be  preferred  to  that  of  Mrs.  Gereth,  if  Maggie  Ver- 
ver's  to  Charlotte  Stant's,  it  is  not  the  author  who  tells 
you  so.  You  have  to  find  it  out  for  yourself. 

It  is  interesting  to  speculate  how  other  novelists  would 
have  treated  the  themes  of  James.  In  "The  Spoils  of 
Poynton,"  George  Eliot  would,  I  suppose,  have  agreed 
in  preferring  Fleda  to  Mrs.  Gereth ;  and  she  would  have 
let  you  know  rather  promptly  how  well  Fleda  typified  the 
eternal  beauty  of  a  scrupulous  conscience.  Meredith 
would  probably  have  taken  sides  with  Mrs,  Gereth  as 
being  a  representative  of  common  sense;  and  he  would 
not  have  hesitated  to  call  Fleda  a  sentimentalist,  and  to 
explain  how  she  is  preferring  imaginary  values  to  real 
ones  and  sacrificing  the  happiness  of  four  people  to  her 
own  spiritual  vanity.  It  is  clear  that  James  admires 
Fleda  most;  but  the  only  way  in  which  he  favors  her  is 
by  making  hers  the  interpreting  consciousness. 

This  is  not  a  method  grateful  to  the  "man  in  the  street." 
It  makes  him  too  responsible.  And  that  is  not  what  he 
likes.  For  while  he  is  generally  moral,  tremendously 
moral,  he  wants  the  responsibility  laid  elsewhere.  And 
we  are  mostly  ourselves  the  man  in  the  street, — enough 
so  to  suspect  this  moral  neutrality — when  carried  to  such 
lengths — of  being  indistinguishable  from  moral  indiffer 
ence.  Thus  James  falls  under  the  general  suspicion 
attaching  to  "foreign"  writers  of  fiction. 

This  is  one  of  the  curiosities  of  literary  history,  that 
Henry  James  should  be  suspected  of  moral  indifference 
and  confused  with  the  foreign  sinners  of  his  day.  He  has 
taken  pains  enough  in  his  critical  writing  to  make  clear 
his  attitude  in  the  matter.  He  is  indeed  indulgent  of 


Ethics  133 


any  conscientious  literary  art,  and  he  does  not  wish  to 
coerce  anyone  against  his  bent  or  his  natural  philosophy. 
But  it  is  plain  that  he  prefers  a  view  of  life  that  takes 
largely  into  account  moral  considerations ;  and  that  while 
he  deprecates  the  characteristic  timidity  of  English 
novelists  in  regard  to  certain  aspects  of  morality,1  he 
yet  on  the  whole  thinks  highly  of  them  for  their  moral 
complexion.  In  an  essay  on  Trollope,  comparing  English 
writers  of  fiction  with  French,  James  remarks  that  the 
English  "have  been  more  at  home  in  the  moral  world; 
as  people  say  today  they  know  their  way  about  the  con 
science."2  Most  penetrating  criticism  of  non-moral  ten 
dencies  in  certain  foreign  fiction  is  to  be  found  in  James's 
essays  on  Maupassant  and  D'Annunzio.  In  the  case  of 
Maupassant,  the  American  novelist  was  obviously  con 
fronted  with  a  problem  which  he  was  anxious  to  solve. 
He  was  deeply  concerned  to  find  some  way  of  reconciling 
the  vile  cynicism  of  this  author  with  his  high  and  serious 
art.  This  he  does  simply  by  denying  to  the  French  story 
teller  the  possession  of  a  moral  sense. 

The  truth  is  that  the  admirable  system  of  simplification 
which  makes  his  tales  so  rapid  and  concise  .  .  .  strikes 
us  as  not  in  the  least  a  conscious  intellectual  effort,  a 
selective,  comparative  jjrogess.  He  tells  us  all  he  knows, 
all  hesuspects,  and  if  these  things  take  no  account  of  the 
moral  nature  of  man,  it  is  because  he  has  no  window 
looking  in  that  direction,  and  not  because  artistic  scruples 
have  compelled  him  to  close  it  up.  The  very  compact 
mansion  in  which  he  dwells  presents  on  that  side  a  per 
fectly  dead  wall.  .  .  .*  If  he  is  a  master  of  his  art 
and  it  is  discouraging  to  find  what  low  views  are  compati 
ble  with  mastery,  there  is  satisfaction,  on  the  other  hand, 

1  In  the  essay  on  "The  Art  of  Fiction"  in  "Partial  Portraits." 

2  "Partial  Portraits,"  p.  124. 
s  Id.,  p.  258. 


134  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

in  learning  on  what  particular  condition  he  holds  his 
strange  success.  This  condition,  it  seems  to  me,  is  that 
of  having  totally  omitted  one  of  the  items  of  the 
problem.4 

We  may  be  sure  that  James  did  not  intend  himself 
to  omit  any  of  the  items  of  the  problem.  These  passages 
are  from  the  essay  quoted  in  my  last  chapter  in  which  he 
defends  the  use  of  "psychology."  The  psychology  of 
James  is  nothing  but  an  extended  delineation  of  the  moral 
aspects  of  life.  The  sense  of  his  moral  indifference  which 
some  people  get  from  a  hasty  reading  must  derive  partly, 
as  I  have  intimated,  from  the  neutrality  of  treatment. 
And  it  derives  partly  too  from  the  fact  that  the  moral 
values  of  James  are  not  at  once  recognized  for  those  of 
the  man  in  the  street.  It  may  be  that  James  does  mani 
fest  an  indifference  to  questions  of  conduct  on  the  ordi 
nary  plane,  such  questions  as  are  gravely  featured  in  "The 
Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray"  and  "The  Notorious  Mrs. 
Ebbsmith."  He  flies  in  a  loftier  air,  where  one  has  mo 
encounter  with  the  vulgar  temptations)  or  where  at  least 
they  are  not  seen  in  the  simple  vulgar  light.  There  is — 
particularly  in  the  later  novels — scarcely  a  hint  of  the 
principle  of  duty  as  such,  the  principle  that  has  figured 
so  largely  in  tlie  moral  system  of  New  England.  We  are 
not  here  concerned  with  the  morality  of  the  decalogue 
and  the  police  court,  with  what  is  known  as  "conven 
tional  morality."  Some  of  his  most  favored  characters 
are  at  times  shown  indulgent  to  violations  of  this  conven 
tional  code,  if  not  actually  indifferent  to  it.  Thus  Chris 
topher  Newman,  while  "going  in"  himself  for  the  highest 
luxury  in  the  article  of  love,  does  not  feel  called  upon  to 
break  with,  or  preach  at,  his  Parisian  friend  whose  ideal 

4  "Partial  Portraits,"  p.  284. 


Ethics  135 


is  so  much  lower.  Merton  Densher,  who  can  with  diffi 
culty  stomach  the  way  his  fiancee  proposes  to  work  their 
American  friend,  actually  requires  Kate  to  sacrifice  her 
innocence,  as  we  say,  in  order  to  prove  her  sincerity. 
Maggie  Verver  and  her  father  cannot  find  it  in  their 
hearts  to  hate  or  condemn  the  unfaithful  partners  who 
have  taken  up  so  unnatural  an  alliance ;  and  Maggie  wins 
back  her  husband  precisely  through  the  magnanimous 
way  in  which  she  takes  the  situation.  Lambert  Strether, 
who  is  the  very  incarnation  of  the  New  England  con 
science,  feels  bound  to  declare  in  the  end  for  the  con 
tinuance  of  an  adulterous  relation — to  put  it  in  legal 
terms — as  the  clear  mandate  of  gratitude  and  good  faith. 
It  is  true  that,  on  the  whole,  the  conventional  morality 
does  not  come  out  so  badly  after  all.  It  comes  out  much 
better  in  James  than  in  most  of  his  successors  in  the 
English  novel.  The  case  of  Chad  in  "The  Ambassadors" 
is  really  quite  exceptional  with  James.  One  must  remem 
ber  how  Madame  de  Mauves  requires  her  chivalrous 
lover  to  sacrifice  his  passion  to  an  ideal  of  fineness ;  how 
Isabel  Archer  goes  back  to  her  detestable  husband ;  how 
Maisie's  bewildered  little  conscience  at  last  revolts 
against  Sir  Claude's  living  with  Mrs.  Beale;  how  tri 
umphant  is  Maggie  Verver  in  the  end  over  the  charms 
of  her  unscrupulous  rival.  James  is  by  no  means  a 
revolutionary  or  a  radical.  He  has  nothing  in  common 
with  those  novelists  and  playwrights  of  our  day  who 
want  to  make  over  the  structure  of  society.  He  is  a 
gentleman  of  cultivated  and  conservative,  not  to  say 
reactionary,  instinct,  who  seems  to  take  great  pleasure 
in  the  present  state  of  things.  rHis  instinct  will  generally 
in  the  end  be  found  to  favor  trie  same  line  of  conduct  as 
that  favored  by  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  law,  as  far  as 
the  law  goes,  t 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


The  point  is  that  it  is  instinct)  or  intuition,  that  deter 
mines  these  matters  for  him.  /And  his  ethical  reactions 
seem  to  be  very  little  affectecr-by  the  practical  bearing 
of  the  conduct  under  consideration.  The  avoidance  of 
pain  and  the  attainment  of  happiness  are  not  the  matters 
of  first  importance.  In  brief,  his  ethics  are  not  utilitarian. 
Still  less  does  he  conceive  of  morality,  in  the  fashion 
of  those  who  make  an  "economic  interpretation  of  his 
tory,"  as  the  product  ultimately  of  industrial  conditions, 
as  accordingly  relative  and  having  no  higher  sanction 
than  the  social  order  that  produces  it.  The  morality  of 
James  is  serenely  unconscious  of  any  such  low  origins. 

Now  the  ethics  of  most  of  us,  in  so  far  as  they  are 
not  conventional  or  traditional,  are  frankly  utilitarian. 
We  argue  that  such  a  line  of  conduct  is  wrong  because 
it  is  socially  harmful  ;  that  such  a  line  of  conduct  is  right 
because  in  the  long  run  it  leads  to  the  greatest  good  of 
the  greatest  number.  When  we  condemn  horse-stealing 
or  wife-stealing,  we  can  cite  the  most  practical  of  reasons. 
That  is  where  James  differs  from  us.  The  best  reason 
he  can  find  for  condemning  or  approving  a  given  course 
of  action  is  that  it  is  ugly  or  beautiful  as  the  case  may  be. 
That  is  in  the  last  analysis  why  he  suffers  suspicion  in  a 
world  of  practical  people. 

When  we  bring  it  down  to  particulars,  we  find  it 
comes  to  much  the  same  thing  in  the  end.MOur  morality, 
like  our  food  and  our  material  arrangements,  has  been 
pretty  well  standardized  ;  and  the  ethics  of  James  are 
found,  on  inspection,  to  bethe  usual  idealistic,  or  "bour 
geois,"  or  Christian  ethics.^ 

Let  us  enumerate  the  several  virtues  most  highly 
recommended  by  the  example  of  his  heroes  and  heroines, 
We  cannot  do  better  than  begin,  however,  with  his  criti 
cism  of  the  ethics  —  or  sentimental  esthetics  —  of  his 


Ethics  137 

Italian  contemporary,  D'Annunzio.  The  erotic  adven 
tures  of  D'Annunzio's  people  James  finds  most  unsatis 
factory  because  they  remain  so  purely  matters  of  sensa 
tion,  so  brief  and  isolated,  bearing  so  little  relation  to 
the  general  course  of  life  and  conduct.  I  must  cite  but 
one  or  two  from  the  many  keen  observations  of  our 
critic.  "That  sexual  passion,"  says  Mr.  James,  "from 
which  he  extracts  such  admirable  detached  pictures  in 
sists  on  remaining  for  him  only  the  act  of  a  moment, 
beginning  and  ending  in  itself  and  disowning  any  repre 
sentative  character.  .  .  .  Shut  out  from  the  rest  of  life, 
shut  out  from  all  fruition  and  assimilation,  it  has  no 
more  dignity  than — to  use  a  homely  image — the  boots 
and  shoes  that  we  see,  in  the  corridors  of  promiscuous 
hotels,  standing,  often  in  double  pairs,  at  the  doors  of 
rooms.  .  .  .VWhat  the  participants  do  with  their  agita 
tion,  in  short,  or  even  what  it  does  with  them,  that  is  the 
stuff  of  poetry,  and  it  is  never  really  interesting  save 
when  something  finely  contributive  in  themselves  makes 
it  so.  It  is  this  absence  of  anything  finely  contributive 
in  themselves,  on  the  part  of  the  various  couples  here 
concerned,  that  is  the  open  door  to  the  trivial."5)  One 
will  note  the  terms  of  approval  and  condemnation^  The 
great  sin  is  to  be  trivial,  and  the  great  virtue  is  to  have 
dignity.  In  order  for  love  to  have  dignity,  it  must  be 
more  than  "the  act  of  a  moment,  beginning  and  ending 
in  itself  and  disowning  any  representative  character."  To 
have  representative  character  it  must  stand  for  something 
in  sentiment,  in  personal  relations.  And  in  order  to 
correspond  to  anything  in  sentiment  it  must  have  dura 
tion,  so  that  there  may  be  some  wholeness  or  continuity 
in  the  pattern  of  one's  conduct.  "How  otherwise  than 

8  "Notes  on  Novelists,"  p.  292. 


138  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

by  the  element  of  comparative  duration  do  we  obtain 
the  element  of  comparative  good  faith,  on  which  we 
depend  for  the  element,  in  turn,  of  comparative  dignity  ?"6 
Here  then  we  have  the  first  of  the  virtues  that  charac 
terize  the  finest  people  of  James,  the  virtue  of  constancy, 
or  faithfulness  to  a  relation.  When  Isabel  Archer  returns 
to  her  husband,  in  spite  of  the  certainty  of  unhappiness 
with  him,  it  is  not  altogether,  it  is  not  mainly,  I  think, 
on  account  of  Pansy  and  what  she  owes  to  her  unpro 
tected  state.  Or  Pansy  is  thought  of  zp  but  one  factor 
in  the  general  matrimonial  situation.  I  Isabel  returns  be 
cause  her  pride  requires  that  she  sKaTT  carry  through 
what  she  has  undertaken,  that  the  stuff  of  her  life  may 
not  be  left  torn  and  ragged.  Osmond  himself  had 
expressed  it  for  her  in  their  last  talk  before  her  departure 
for  England.  He  had  reminded  her  of  their  inescapable 
nearness  to  one  another,  as  husband  and  wife.  It  might 
be  a  disagreeable  proximity,  but  it  was  one  of  their  own 
deliberate  making.  "I  think,"  says  Osmond  "we  should 
accept  the  consequences  of  our  actions,  and  what  I  value 
most  in  life  is  the  honour  of  the  thing."  These  words 
"were  not  a  command,  they  constituted  a  kind  of  appeal; 
and,  though  she  felt  that  any  expression  of  respect  on  his 
part  could  only  be  a  refinement  of  egotism,  they 
represented  something  transcendent  and  absolute,  like  the 
sign  of  the  cross  or  the  flag  of  one's  country."7  It  is 
even  more  obviously  this  virtue  of  constancy  that  prevails 
in  "The  Ambassadors"  because  of  its  being  constancy 
to  a  relation  not  conventionally  right.  To  all  intents  and 
purposes,  it  seems  to  Strether,  Chad  Newsome  is  the 
husband  of  Madame  de  Vionnet.  It  is  he  that  is  bound 
to  her  by  gratitude  for  all  that  this  relation  has  meant 

6  "Notes  on  Novelists,"  p.  286. 

7  Vol.  IV,  p.  356. 


Ethics  139 


in  the  development  of  his  personality.  It  is  he  whose 
moral  dignity  depends  upon  the  continuance  of  a  relation 
long  established  and  grounded  in  sentiment  and  taste. 
He  stands,  in  this  story,  in  the  same  relation  to  his  mis 
tress  as  Cressida,  before  her  breach  of  faith,  stands  to 
her  lover  Troilus. 

So  important  is  this  virtue  of  constancy  to  an  estab 
lished  relation,  so  important  is  duration  in  love,  that  when 
the  heart  of  Merton  Densher,  in  "The  Wings  of  the 
Dove,"  begins  to  turn  from  his  unscrupulous  fiancee 
to  the  finer  woman  whom  she  wishes  to  "use,"  he  begins 
to  realize  how  far  back  their  acquaintance  really  dates. 
It  was  not  Kate  and  her  aunt  who  first  introduced  him 
to  Milly  Theale  in  England.  He  had  known  her  first, 
in  the  hazy  period  of  his  stay  in  New  York.  "Behind 
everything  for  him  was  his  renewed  remembrance,  which 
had  fairly  become  a  habit,  that  he  had  been  the  first  to 
know  her.  ...  Its  influence  had  been  all  there,  been 
in  the  high-hung  rumbling  carriage  with  them,  from  the 
moment  she  took  him  to  drive,  covering  them  in  together 
as  if  it  had  been  a  rug  of  softest  silk.  It  had  worked 
as  a  clear  connexion  with  something  lodged  in  the  past, 
something  already  their  own.  .  .  .  He  was  not  there,  not 
just  as  he  was  in  so  doing  it,  through  Kate  and  Kate's 
idea,  but  through  Milly  and  Milly's  own,  and  through 
himself  and  his  own,  unmistakably — as  well  as  through 
the  little  facts,  whatever  they  had  amounted  to,  of  his 
time  in  New  York."8  It  is  thus  that  he  reconciles  his 
conscience  obscurely  to  the  obscure  transfer  of  allegiance 
that  he  is  making  by  giving  the  greatest  possible  sense  of 
intimacy  and  extent  to  the  chronologically  more  recent 
of  his  relations.  It  is  thus  that  he  violates  constancy  in 
the  very  name  of  constancy. 

8  Vol.  XX,  pp.  185-186. 


140  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

On  this  same  branch  grows  the  twin  virtue  of  good 
faith.  It  is,  we  learn,  comparative  good  faith  which 
is  indispensable  to  comparative  moral  dignity.  There  is 
very  little  of  the  comparative  in  the  good  faith  which 
James  exacts  of  his  principal  characters.  Nothing  short 
of  absolute  is  that  of  Rowland  Mallet  and  Mary  Garland. 
Isabel  Archer  comes  back  to  assured  misery  in  order  to 
meet  what  her  mean  husband  calls  "the  honour  of  the 
thing."  Fleda  Vetch  makes  a  still  greater  sacrifice  to 
what  many  would  deem  a  Quixotic  sense  of  honor.  If 
we  have  the  feeling  that  Chad  Newsome  will  in  the  end 
prove  unfaithful  to  Madame  de  Vionnet,  this  arises  from 
our  very  suspicion  that  his  character  is  not  up  to  the 
standard  of  his  personality.  Merton  Densher  finds  he 
cannot  lie  to  Milly  Theale  as  required  by  Kate's  program. 
If  he  had  lied  about  their  engagement,  he  explains  to 
Kate,  he  would  have  been  obliged  to  make  the  lie  true.9 

But  there  is  a  virtue  more  distinctively  Christian  than 
honor  that  figures  largely  in  the  stories  of  James.  That  is 
^unselfishness,  or  self-devotion  to  the  happiness  of  others. 
Rowland  Mallet  •  is  the  shining  example  in  the  earlier 
novels.  But  the  largest  number  and  the  most  interesting 
of  these  martyrs  are  to  be  found  in  the  later  group.  For 
here  it  is  that  we  have  Fleda  Vetch  and  "Mitchy"  and 
Milly  Theale.  Here  also  we  have  the  interesting  case 
of  Maggie  Verver,  who,  in  order  to  get  back  her  husband 
and  yet  spare  the  feelings  of  her  rival,  consents  in  one 
scene  even  to  play  the  part  of  a  mean  and  jealous  woman, 
and  so  make  a  sacrifice  of  what  is  perhaps  our  most 
precious  asset,  vanity.10  Of  course  she  does  not  make 
her  sacrifice  for  nothing,  and  yet  it  is  a  beautiful  exhibi 
tion  of  generosity  of  spirit.  She  wins  her  own  personal 

•  Vol.  XX,  p.  325. 

*>  Chap.  V.  of  the  Fifth  Book 


Ethics  141 


end  by  sinking  herself  so  completely.  Lambert  Strether, 
on  the  other  hand,  like  Fleda  and  Milly  and  Mitchy,  gives 
up  all  and  has  nothing  to  show  for  it.  He  might  have 
had  Maria  Gostrey,  and  a  very  good  bargain  it  would 
have  been.  But  as  he  explains  to  her,  in  order  to  be  right 
he  must  "not,  out  of  the  whole  affair,  have  got  anything 
for  himself."11 

Not  anything,  that  is,  of  course,  but  the  consciousness 
of  being  "right,"  or  some  such  insubstantial  gain  as  that. 
The  capacity  for  self-devotion  implies  an  unusually  high 
appreciation  of  immaterial  values.  The  ethical  values  of 
James  are  always  of  the  most  immaterial.  They  are 
never  represented  in  religious  any  more  than  in  utilitarian 
terms.12  The  rewards  of  a  future  life  count  for  nothing 
with  the  characters  of  James.  Self-sacrifice  is  not  a 
word  in  their  vocabulary.  They  never  think  of  their 
sacrifices  as  being  made  for  some  "far  gain."  Their 
morality  is  an  affair  of  sentiment,  or  of  taste.  Their 
creator  is  capable  of  speaking  of  his  characters'  moral 
good  taste.13  The  art  of  life  which  they  are  all  practicing 
so  assiduously  is  an  art  the  materials  of  which  are  what 
we  call  moral — only,  as  we  have  seen,  they  are  so  pre-  "V 
sented  that  the  man  in  the  street  might  utterly  fail  to 
indentify  them  as  such.  We  can  best  express  it  perhaps  1 
by  calling  it  a  transcendental  morality.  It  is  all  con-  ' 
ceived  in  that  spiritual  realm  where  the  bounds  of  taste 
and  morality  run  together  and  become  indistinguishable. 

So  far  as  I  know,  James  has  found  appreciation,  where 

11  Vol.  XXII,  p.  326. 

12  I  am  not  forgetting  either  that  the  finer  type  of  Utilitarian 
has  place  for  many  immaterial  things  among  his  more  substantial 
"utilities." 

13  Apropos  of  "Aunt  Pinnie"  in  "The  Princess  Casamassima," 
Vol.  V,  p.  68. 


14.2  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

he  has  found  it  at  all,  almost  exclusively  among  English 
and  American  readers.  And  while  I  cannot  at  all  clearly 
explain  what  I  mean,  I  feel  that  his  appeal  is  necessarily 
limited  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  moral  sentiment.  The  pecu 
liar  quality  of  spiritual  life  here  delineated  is  English, 
or  still  more  perhaps  American,  and  a  quality  not  readily 
intelligible  to  the  French  mind,  for  example.  The  same 
quality  is  to  be  felt  in  Emerson  and  in  Wordsworth.  The 
reader  may  remember  the  passage  in  "Madame  de  Mau- 
ves"  in  which  M.  de  Mauves  appeals  to  the  young  Ameri 
can  who  is  paying  attentions  to  his  wife,  on  the  subject  of 
her  reading.  It  is  a  passage  of  the  highest  irony  for  the 
Anglo-Saxon  reader.  "  'I  doubt  if  your  English  authors/ 
the  Count  [remarked]  with  a  serenity  which  Longmore 
afterwards  characterized  as  sublime,  'are  very  sound 
reading  for  young  married  women.  I  don't  pretend  to 
know  very  much  about  them ;  but  I  remember  that  not 
long  after  our  marriage  Madame  de  Mauves  under 
took  to  read  me  one  day  some  passages  from  a  certain 
Wordsworth — a  poet  highly  esteemed,  it  appears,  chez 
vous.  It  was  as  if  she  had  taken  me  by  the  nape  of  the 
neck  and  held  my  head  for  half  an  hour  over  a  basin  of 
soupe  QMX  choux:  I  felt  as  if  we  ought  to  ventilate  the 
drawingroom  before  any  one  called.  But  I  suppose  you 
know  him — ce  genie-la.  Every  nation  has  its  own  ideals 
of  every  kind,  but  when  I  remember  some  of  our  charm 
ing  writers !' J:  He  recommends  Alfred  de  Musset ;  and 
he  wishes  his  wife  might  do  a  little  traveling,  presum 
ably  in  company  with  Mr.  Longmore.  "It  would  enlarge 
her  horizon  ...  it  would  wake  up  her  imagination."14 
We  have  a  way,  nous  autres,  of  considering  Wordsworth 
very  much  of  a  stimulus  to  the  imagination.  I  am  aware 
that  one  of  the  finest  studies  of  Wordsworth  has  been 
"  Vol.  XIII,  p.  265-266. 


Ethics  143 


made  by  a  French  scholar.  But  I  suppose  it  is  not  rash 
to  assert  that  M.  de  Mauves  represents  better  the  general 
taste  of  his  nation  in  this  matter  than  M.  Legouis. 

At  any  rate  foreigners  have  shown  very  little  inclina 
tion  to  take  to  their  bosoms  Henry  James. 

This  is  not,  I  think,  because  of  his  extreme  niceness 
in  psychological  analysis.  Some  of  the  continental 
writers  have  carried  very  far  this  same  practice.  It  is 
rather  because  of  the  peculiar  psychology  to  which  he 
applies  his  analysis.  With  them  the  psychological  de 
tails  must  make  up  together  a  picture  of  the  broad  pas 
sions  and  moral  forces.  They  must  foot  up  to  something 
Byronic  or  Balzacian.  And  this  the  niceties  of  James 
would  not  seem  to  them  to  do.  Mr.  James  tells  us  that 
Turgenieff  didn't  take  the  trouble  to  read  the  novels 
which  he  regularly  sent  as  tribute  to  the  master.  Had 
he  read  them,  Mr.  James  opines,  they  would  not  have  ap 
pealed  to  him.  "He  cared,  more  than  anything  else,  for 
the  air  of  reality,  and  my  reality  was  not  to  the  purpose. 
I  do  not  think  my  stories  struck  him  as  quite  meat  for 
men.  The  manner  was  more  apparent  than  the  matter; 
they  were  too  tarabiscote,  as  I  once  heard  him  say  of 
the  style  of  a  book — had  on  the  surface  too  many  little 
flowers  and  knots  of  ribbon."15  I  wonder  if  Mr.  James 
did  not  make  too  much,  in  this  guess,  of  the  style  of  his 
work,  the  beribboned  surface.  Was  there  not  a  deeper 
reason  why  they  would  not  have  seemed  to  the  Russian 
novelist  "quite  meat  for  men"?  Was  there  not  another 
reason  for  their  failing  to  have  for  certain  readers  "the 
air  of  reality"?  I  fancy  the  great  bar  to  appreciation 
by  foreigners  would  be  that  peculiar  transcendentalism 
or  other- worldliness  of  motives  in  James.  Was  not 
James  in  all  this  traceably  a  product  of  that  mystical  New 

«  "Partial  Portraits,"  pp.  298-299. 


144  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

England  spirit  represented  so  strongly  in  his  Sweden- 
borgian  father  and  his  religio-philosophical  brother? 
James  may  have  been  as  expatriated  an  American  as  you 
will;  his  stories  laid  at  home  may  be  particularly  thin 
and  wanting  in  quality.  But  his  most  typical  characters 
are,  with  few  exceptions,  Americans ;  and  while  the  back 
ground  is  European,  the  psychology  is  Anglo-Saxon,  and 
what  is  more,  Anglo-Saxon  of  Concord  and  Cambridge, 
Mass.  What  "foreigner"  could  be  expected  really  to 
appreciate  the  character  of  Milly  Theale  or  Maggie  Ver- 
ver,  of  Lambert  Strether  or  even  of  little  Maisie? 

This  is  all,  to  be  sure,  a  highly  speculative  matter.  No 
one  knows  what  are  the  traits  of  the  American  character 
at  the  present  moment,  or  what  our  national  ideals  are 
going  to  show  themselves  when  formed.  But  we  do 
know  something  of  a  certain  American  spirit  that  flow 
ered  about  Boston  in  the  days  of  Theodore  Parker ;  and 
I  find  a  strong  tincture  of  this  spirit  in  the  ethics  of 
Henry  James.  If  my  finding  be  correct,  it  should  make 
us  hesitate  the  less  to  rank  James  not  merely  as  the  great 
est  novelist  born  in  America,  but  as  our  greatest  Ameri 
can  novelist.  He  may  not  be  American  as  Mark  Twain 
or  Benjamin  Franklin  or  Edgar  Lee  Masters  are  Ameri 
can,  but  he  is  American  as  Emerson  and  Thoreau  and 
Hawthorne  are. 


THE  FIGURE  IN  THE  CARPET 

There  is  one  group  among  the  shorter  stories  of  James 
that  has  a  peculiar  interest  for  anyone  seeking  hints 
and  revelations  of  the  personal  experience,  the  temper 
and  ideals  of  their  author.  It  comprises  nearly  a  dozen 
tales  dealing  with  writers  of  fiction.  It  is  of  course 
a  hazardous  business  making  inferences  in  regard  to 
James  from  any  of  these  stories.  The  information  we 
may  suppose  ourselves  to  derive  from  them  is  neither  so 
substantial,  so  technical,  nor  so  authoritative  as  what  he 
offers  us  in  the  Prefaces.  But  it  is  not  the  less  precious 
on  that  account.  If,  with  tact  and  discretion,  we  do  learn 
something  from  these  stories  about  his  attitude  towards 
his  art,  it  will  be  something  of  an  intimacy  nowhere  else 
to  be  felt.  It  will  be  something,  say,  which  modesty 
and  pride  forbade  him  to  let  us  have  straight  from  him 
self ;  but  something  he  might  be  willing  for  us  to  learn 
by  sympathetic  inference,  laying  upon  us  the  whole 
responsibility  of  assertion. 

Most  fascinating  of  all  these  tales,  and  the  one  which 
constitutes  the  greatest  temptation  for  the  interpreter  of 
James,  is  "The  Figure  in  the  Carpet."1  For  here  he 
shows  us  a  novelist  of  rare  distinction  flinging  down  to 
the  eager  critic  the  challenge  of  his  secret.  The  critic 
is  a  clever  fellow,  a  "demon  of  subtlety";  but  he  has 
failed,  like  everyone  else,  to  discover  the  "little  point" 
the  novelist  most  wishes  to  make.  In  fact  he  has  to  be 
informed  that  there  is  any  such  little  point  to  be  dis 
covered,  that  there  is  a  "particular  thing"  the  novelist  has 

1  Vol.  XV.    Quotations  are  from  pp.  229-235  and  p.  240. 


146  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

"written  his  books  most  for."  "Isn't  there  for  every 
writer,"  asks  Hugh  Vereker,  in  their  momentous  mid 
night  talk,  "isn't  there  a  particular  thing  of  that  sort,  the 
thing  that  most  makes  him  apply  himself,  the  thing  with 
out  the  effort  to  achieve  which  he  wouldn't  write  at  all, 
the  very  passion  of  his  passion,  the  part  of  the  business 
in  which,  for  him,  the  flame  of  art  burns  most  intensely  ? 
Well,  it's  that!"  And  on  a  demand  for  more  particularity 
he  adds,  "There's  an  idea  in  my  work  without  which  I 
wouldn't  have  given  a  straw  for  the  whole  job.  It's  the 
finest  fullest  intention  of  the  lot,  and  the  application  of  it 
has  been,  I  think,  a  triumph  of  patience,  of  ingenuity. 
...  It  stretches,  this  little  trick  of  mine,  from  book  to 
book,  and  everything  else,  comparatively,  plays  over  the 
surface  of  it.  The  order,  the  form,  the  texture  of  my 
books  will  perhaps  some  day  constitute  for  the  initiated 
a  complete  representation  of  it.  So  it's  naturally  the 
thing  for  the  critic  to  look  for.  It  strikes  me  .  .  .  even 
as  the  thing  for  the  critic  to  find."  To  the  other's  query, 
"You  call  it  a  little  trick?"  the  novelist  replies,  "That's 
only  my  little  modesty.  It's  really  an  exquisite  scheme." 
It  is  later  that  the  critic  hits  on  the  figure  of  speech 
by  which  this  "little  trick"  is  best  to  be  described.  "It 
was  something,  I  guessed,  in  the  primal  plan ;  something 
like  a  complex  figure  in  a  Persian  carpet.  He  [Vereker] 
highly  approved  of  this  image  when  I  used  it,  and  he 
used  another  himself.  'It's  the  very  string,'  he  said, 
'that  my  pearls  are  strung  on.' " 

"It's  naturally  the  thing  for  the  critic  to  look  for," 
said  Hugh  Vereker  of  his  "little  trick."  "It  strikes  me 
even  as  the  thing  for  the  critic  to  find."  What  head  is 
cool  enough  to  resist  the  suggestion  that  James  had  here 
in  mind  his  own  well-nigh  desperate  case?  Was  there 
not  some  "intention"  of  his  own  which  had  been  regularly 


The  Figure  in  the  Carpet  147 

overlooked  by  reviewers  in  their  hasty  mention  of  his 
work?  It  was  not  that  he  wished  to  be  difficult  and 
esoteric.  It  was  not  so  at  least  with  Hugh  Vereker. 
"If  my  great  affair's  a  secret,  that's  only  because  it's  a 
secret  in  spite  of  itself — the  amazing  event  has  made  it 
one.  I  not  only  never  took  the  smallest  precaution  to 
keep  it  so,  but  never  dreamed  of  any  such  accident.  If  I 
had  I  shouldn't  in  advance  have  had  the  heart  to  go  on. 
As  it  was,  I  only  became  aware  little  by  little,  and  mean 
while  I  had  done  my  work."  But  now  his  secret  had 
become  for  him  the  great  amusement  of  life.  "  'I  live 
almost  to  see  if  it  will  ever  be  detected.'  He  looked 
at  me  for  a  jesting  challenge;  something  far  within  his 
eyes  seemed  to  peep  out.  'But  I  needn't  worry — it 
won't !'  "  One  cannot  but  wonder  if  Henry  James,  like 
Hugh  Vereker,  did  pass  away  without  ever  having  his 
secret  put  adequately  into  words. 

We  need  not  take  this  tale  too  gravely  as  a  revelation 
of  the  artistic  soul  of  Henry  James.  We  need  not  set 
ourselves,  with  confident  assumption,  to  solve  the  hinted 
riddle  of  his  work.  But  we  should  be  missing  a  rare 
occasion  if  we  did  not  take  up  this  metaphor  and  let  it 
guide  us  in  our  summary  of  his  art.  Perhaps  we  should 
say  there  is  not  one,  there  are  many  figures  in  the  carpet, 
— as  many  figures  as  there  are  fond,  discerning  readers. 
For  me  the  figure  in  the  carpet  is  that  which  gives  life 
to  the  whole  work.  It  must  be  implied  in  all  that  we 
have  found  to  be  true  of  it ;  it  must  be  the  inner  meaning 
and  the  motive  of  all  that  is  included  in  his  method. 
This  too  is  suggested  by  what  Hugh  Vereker  says  of  his 
"secret."  It  is  not  a  "kind  of  esoteric  message" :  at  least 
it  cannot  be  adequately  described  "in  cheap  journalese." 
He  will  not  limit  it  by  saying  it  is  "something  in  the 
style  or  something  in  the  thought,  an  element  of  form  or 


148  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

an  element  of  feeling."  "Well,"  says  Hugh  Vereker, 
"you've  got  a  heart  in  your  body.  Is  that  an  element  of 
form  or  an  element  of  feeling?  What  I  contend  that 
nobody  has  ever  mentioned  in  my  work  is  the  organ  of 
life." 

"Esoteric  message"  is  "cheap  journalese."  The  same 
red  lantern  warns  off  from  any  statement  of  James's 
"philosophy  of  life."  It  may  be  James  has  no  philosophy 
of  life.  But  he  has  something  which  will  serve  the  pur 
pose  as  well.  He  has  a  scale  of  values,  a  preference  in 
human  experience,  an  absorbing  preoccupation.  From 
first  to  last  he  is  preoccupied  not  with  men's  lives  but 
with  the  quality  of  their  experience ;  not  with  the  pattern 
but  with  the  texture  of  life.  Most  novelists  seem  by 
comparison  all  taken  up  with  the  pattern.  In  Fielding 
and  Scott,  in  Balzac  and  Zola,  in  Thackeray  and  Tolstoi, 
it  is  the  adventures  of  the  characters  that  we  are  bidden 
to  follow.  The  contrast  is  the  more  remarkable  when  it  is 
the  English  contemporaries  of  James  that  are  brought  into 
comparison.  In  Meredith  and  George  Eliot,  a  matter 
of  prime  importance  is  what  the  characters  bring  to  pass 
in  a  practical  way.  These  authors  may  indeed  reconcile 
themselves  to  the  littleness  of  accomplishment  on  the 
part  of  their  heroes ;  but  it  is  accomplishment  of  some 
sort  on  which  heroes  and  authors  alike  are  determined. 
Meredith  and  George  Eliot  had  both  a  philosophy  of  life. 
They  were  both  strongly  imbued  with  perfectionist  and 
utilitarian  ideals.  They  staked  their  all  on  the  progress 
and  improvement  of  humanity.  A  better  world  was  the 
cry  they  had  taken  up  from  the  lips  of  Rousseau  and 
Voltaire,  Bentham  and  Mill.  The  fact  is  deeply  hidden 
under  romance  and  sentiment  of  the  later  day ;  but  George 
Eliot  and  Meredith  are  still  in  the  practical  and  mate 
rialist  tradition,  of,  say,  Benjamin  Franklin.  It  is 


The  Figure  in  the  Carpet  149 

another  tradition,  as  we  have  seen,  to  which  James  owes 
allegiance;  an  idealist  tradition  deriving  ultimately  from 
romantic  Germany  and  reaching  its  finest  expression  in 
Wordsworth,  Emerson  and  Hawthorne.  Writing  in  the 
time  of  Gladstone  and  Bernard  Shaw,  James  seems  hardly 
to  have  given  a  thought  to  the  political  destinies  of  men 
or  to  the  practical  consequences  and  bearings  of  personal 
conduct.  It  is  not  in  the  relative  terms  of  cause  and 
effect  that  he  considers  human  action.  He  is  content, 
like  some  visionary  Platonist,  to  refer  each  item  of  con 
duct  to  an  absolute  standard  of  the  good  and  the  beauti 
ful.  This  is  one  reason  why  he  is  so  strange  a  figure  in 
our  world  all  bent  on  getting  results.  We  have,  mostly, 
no  such  absolute  standards.  We  know  nothing  of  any 
Ideas  in  the  mind  of  God. 

In  the  stories  of  other  writers,  men  and  women  are 
shown  us  obsessed  with  desires  and  ambitions  and 
opposed  by  material  difficulties.  And  our  interest  is 
absorbed  in  the  process  by  which  they  overcome  their 
difficulties  and  realize  their  desires.  The  characters  of 
James  too  have  ambitions  and  desires.  But  that  is  not 
the  thing  that  strikes  us  most  about  them.  What  strikes 
us  most  about  them  is  their  capacity  for  renunciation — 
for  giving  up  any  particular  gratification  in  favor  of  some 
fine  ideal  of  conduct  with  which  it  proves  incompatible. 
Common  men  and  women  have  a  more  desperate  grip 
on  material  values.  There  are  things  they  insist  on  hav 
ing.  It  may  be  money,  or  professional  success,  or  social 
position,  or  some  person  indispensable  to  their  happiness. 
And  there  is  for  them  no  immaterial  substitute  for  these 
substantial  goods.  There  is  nothing  in  thought  or  feeling 
that  can  reconcile  the  lover  to  the  loss  of  his  mistress, 
nothing  he  will  prefer  to  the  woman  he  has  set  his  heart 
upon.  But  the  characters  of  James  are  not  common  men 


150  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

and  women;  and  for  the  finest  of  them  there  is  always 
something  of  more  account  than  the  substance  of  their 
experience, — namely,  its  quality.  They  may,  like  other 
mortals,  long  for  the  realization  of  some  particular  desire ; 
but  they  long  still  more  fervently  for  the  supreme  com 
fort  of  being  right  with  themselves.  We  know  what  a 
capacity  for  happiness  was  Isabel  Archer's ;  but  we  know 
that  happiness  was  far  from  being  the  thing  she  most 
sought,  and  we  know  with  what  deliberation  she  chose  to 
embrace  her  fate,  when  she  was  on^e  made  aware  of 
l"what  most  people  know  and  suffer."  j  We  are  gratified 
and  appalled  by  the  meekness  with  which  these  people 
accept  their  dole  of  misery  and  deprivation, — this  Mitchy 
and  Nanda,  this  Christopher  Newman  and  Fleda  Vetch. 
It  seems  that  we  must  not  use  words  of  unhappy  connota 
tion  to  describe  such  exalted  fervency  of  renunciation. 
It  is  only  because  we  ourselves  require  the  objective 
realization  of  our  desires  that  we  so  misrepresent  them. 
They  seem  in  point  of  fact  to  take  some  higher  ground 
inaccessible  to  our  feet.  They  seem  to  say :  Lo,  we  have 
in  not  having.  We  were  denied  the  shadow,  but  we  have 
always  possessed  the  real  substance.  One  fantastic  crea 
ture  even  ventures  to  contend  that,  in  the  realm  of  art, 
realization — concrete  achievement — is  inimical  to  the 
true  life  of  the  soul.  Gabriel  Nash  is  actually  afraid 
Nick  Dormer  will  prove  a  successful  painter  and  so  spoil 
the  beauty  of  his  testimony  to  the  artistic  faith.  He 
prefers  to  "work  in  life"  himself.  Nick  is  so  practical: 
he  wishes  Gabriel  "had  more  to  show"  for  his  "little 
system."  "Oh,"  says  Gabriel,  "having  something  to 
show's  such  a  poor  business.  It's  a  kind  of  confession 
of  failure."2  One  does  not  need  to  measure  one's  acts 
by  their  consequences.  "One  is  one's  self  a  fine 
2  "The  Tragic  Muse,"  Vol.  VII,  p.  178. 


The  Figure  in  the  Carpet  151 

consequence."3  This  is  the  very  inner  citadel  of  intran 
sigent  idealism.  On  this  system  we  may  interpret  the  ' 
story  of  Fleda  Vetch  as  the  triumph  of  Fleda.  Let  her 
cover  her  face  in  sorrow  as  she  will.  Her  vulgar  rival 
may  have  her  lover,  and  the  flames  may  have  devoured 
the  Spoils.  But  somehow  we  are  given  to  understand 
that,  of  all  the  people  in  her  world,  she  remains  the 
wealthiest.  She  remains  in  substantial  possession  of 
beauty  and  of  love. 

What  counts  in  the  world  of  James  is  not  the  facts 
themselves, — what  one  does  or  what  happens  to  one, 
but  the  interpretation  put  upon  the  facts.  James  has  a 
great  fondness,  especially  in  his  tales,  for  subjects  very 
slight  and  off  the  common  track  of  observation.  There 
is  little  in  the  circumstances  themselves  to  attract 
attention,  and  the  people  are,  on  the  surface,  entirely 
wanting  in  romantic  interest.  The  challenge  is  all  the 
greater  to  an  author  who  prides  himself  on  seeing  below 
the  surface  of  human  nature,  who  is  like  a  naturalist 
delighted  to  bring  home  flowers  of  rare  and  neglected 
beauty  from  spots  unnoted  by  vulgar  eyes.  Such  a 
flower  was  the  homely  American  kinswoman  of  Lady 
Beldonald,  who  was  intended  by  that  handsome  woman 
to  be  her  foil,  her  dull  and  unremarked  companion,  and 
who  was  declared  by  the  portrait-painter  to  be  as  distin 
guished  and  "beautiful"  as  a  Holbein.  It  is  himself  that 
James  describes  in  the  words  of  the  painter.  "It's  not  my 
fault,"  he  says,  "if  I  am  so  put  together  as  often  to  find 
more  life  in  situations  obscure  and  subject  to  interpreta 
tion  than  in  the  gross  rattle  of  the  foreground."  This 
note  is  forever  recurring  both  in  the  stories  themselves 
and  in  the  author's  comment  on  them.  We  hear  it  in 
Miriam  Rooth's  naive  explanation  to  the  great  French 

3  "The  Tragic  Muse,''  Vol.  VII,  p.  33. 


152  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

actress  that  "there  were  two  kinds  of  scenes  and  speeches  : 
those  which  acted  themselves,  of  which  the  treatment 
was  plain,  the  only  way,  so  that  you  had  just  to  take  it; 
and  those  open  to  interpretation,  with  which  you  had  to 
fight  every  step,  rendering,  arranging,  doing  the  thing 
according  to  your  idea."4  The  note  is  sounded  more 
delicately  and  modestly  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Blessing- 
bourne  and  her  romantic  and  at  the  same  time  Platonic 
feeling  for  Colonel  Voyt.  That  gentleman,  who  is  in 
full  enjoyment  of  the  love  of  another  woman,  is  inclined 
to  regard  such  merely  Platonic  love  as  but  thin  material 
for  romance.  But  in  his  discussion  of  the  matter  with  his 
own  mistress,  he  agrees  that  the  pathetic  lady's  very 
consciousness  "was,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  kind  of  shy 
romance.  Not  a  romance  like  their  own,  a  thing  to  make 
the  fortune  of  any  author  up  to  the  mark  .  .  .  but  a 
small  scared  starved  subjective  satisfaction  that  would 
do  her  no  harm  and  nobody  else  any  good."5  We  may 
be  sure  it  was  not  the  creator  of  Fleda  Vetch  and  Milly 
Theale  who  is  applying  to  Mrs.  Blessingbourne's  experi 
ence  this  supercilious  description.  As  he  says  himself  in 
the  preface,  "The  thing  is,  all  beautifully,  a  matter  of 
interpretation  and  of  the  particular  conditions ;  without  a 
view  of  which  latter  some  of  the  most  prodigious  adven 
tures,  as  one  has  often  had  occasion  to  say,  may  vulgarly 
show  for  nothing."8 

The  same  point  is  made  still  more  significantly  in  refer 
ence  to  the  "adventures"  of  Isabel  Archer,  which  he 
seems  to  think  are  but  mild  ones  by  the  ordinary  romantic 

*  "The  Tragic  Muse,"  Vol.  VII,  p.  194. 

*  From  "The  Story  in  It,"  Vol.  XVIII,  pp.  434-435. 

*  Id.,  p.  xxiii.    The  reader  will  pardon  my  quoting  a  second 
time  a  sentence  so  illuminating;  the  first  time  was  in  the  chapter 
on  "Idea." 


The  Figure  in  the  Carpet  153 

measure.  "Without  her  sense  of  them,  her  sense  for 
them,  as  one  may  say,  they  are  next  to  nothing  at  all; 
but  isn't  the  beauty  and  the  difficulty  just  in  showing  their 
mystic  conversion  by  that  sense,  conversion  into  the  stuff 
of  drama  or,  even  more  delightful  word  still,  of  'story'  ?" 
He  vouchsafes  two  "very  good  instances  of  this  effect 
of  conversion."  One  of  them  is 

...  in  the  long  statement,  just  beyond  the  middle  of  the 
book,  of  my  young  woman's  extraordinary  meditative 
vigil  on  the  occasion  that  was  to  become  for  her  such  a 
landmark.  Reduced  to  its  essence,  it  is  but  the  vigil  of 
searching  criticism ;  but  it  throws  the  action  further  for 
ward  than  twenty  "incidents"  might  have  done.  It  was 
designed  to  have  all  the  vivacity  of  incident  and  all  the 
economy  of  picture.  She  sits  up,  by  her  dying  fire,  far 
into  the  night,  under  the  spell  of  recognitions  on  which 
she  finds  the  last  sharpness  suddenly  wait.  It  is  a  repre 
sentation  simply  of  her  motionlessly  seeing,  and  an 
attempt  withal  to  make  the  mere  still  lucidity  of  her  act  as 
"interesting"  as  the  surprise  of  a  caravan  or  the  identi 
fication  of  a  pirate.  It  represents,  for  that  matter,  one  of 
the  identifications  dear  to  the  novelist,  and  even  indispen 
sable  to  him;  but  it  all  goes  on  without  her  being 
approached  by  another  person  and  without  her  leaving 
her  chair.  It  is  obviously  the  best  thing  in  the  book,  but 
it  is  only  a  supreme  illustration  of  the  general  plan.7 

If  Mr.  James  ever  did  trace  out  for  us  the  Figure  in 
the  Carpet,  it  was  in  this  passage,  in  which,  concluding 
his  review  of  the  first  book  which  really  shows  up  the 
figure  with  any  distinctness,  he  lets  us  know  what  is 
"obviously"  the  best  thing  in  the  book,  and  offers  it  to 
us  as  "only  a  supreme  illustration  of  the  general  plan." 
We  are  reminded  of  the  terms  in  which  Hugh  Vereker 
adumbrates  for  his  young  friend  the  "exquisite  scheme," 

7  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  xx-xxi. 


154  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

the  "primal  plan,"  not  merely  of  his  latest  work,  but  of 
the  whole  series  of  his  novels.  We  are  further  reminded 
of  Hugh  Vereker's  attitude  towards  his  public  by  Mr. 
James's  apologetic  and  somewhat  exasperated  remark — 
it  is  in  connection  with  his  other  instance  of  "the  rare 
chemistry"  of  the  character's  sense  for  her  adventures — 
"It  is  dreadful  to  have  too  much,  for  any  artistic  demon 
stration,  to  dot  one's  i's  and  insist  on  one's  intentions, 
and  I  am  not  eager  to  do  it  now." 

But  however  reluctant,  he  felt  obliged  on  this  one  occa 
sion  to  insist  on  his  intentions.  "The  question  here  was 
that  of  producing  the  maximum  of  intensity  with  the 
minimum  of  strain.  The  interest  was  to  be  raised  to 
its  pitch  and  yet  the  elements  to  be  kept  in  their  key; 
so  that,  should  the  whole  thing  duly  impress,  I  might 
show  what  an  'exciting'  inward  life  may  do  for  the 
person  leading  it  even  while  it  remains  perfectly  nor 
mal."8 

"The  Portrait  of  a  Lady"  was  the  first  book  in  which 
James  plainly  showed  his  "little  trick,"  which  he  went  on 
showing  more  and  more  plainly  from  that  time  out.  His 
little  trick  was  simply  not  to  tell  the  "story"  at  all  as  the 
story  is  told  by  the  Scotts  and  the  Maupassants,  but  to 
give  us  instead  the  subjective  accompaniment  of  the 
story.  His  "exquisite  scheme"  was  to  confine  himself 
as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  "inward  life"  of  his  characters, 
and  yet  to  make  it  as  "exciting"  for  his  readers  as  it 
was  for  the  author,  as  exciting — were  that  possible — as 
it  was  for  the  characters  themselves. 

Such  an  interpretation  of  his  "scheme"  would  conform 
very  well,  at  any  rate,  to  Hugh  Vereker's  comprehensive 
description  of  his  own :  "It's  the  finest  fullest  intention  of 
the  lot,  and  the  application  of  it  has  been,  I  think,  a  tri- 

8  Vol.  Ill,  p.  xx. 


The  Figure  in  the  Carpet  155 

umph  of  patience,  of  ingenuity.  ...  It  stretches,  this 
little  trick  of  mine,  from  book  to  book,  and  everything 
else,  comparatively,  plays  over  the  surface  of  it.  The 
order,  the  form,  the  texture  of  my  books  will  perhaps 
some  day  constitute  for  the  initiated  a  complete  repre 
sentation  of  it."  I  don't  know  how  the  scheme  I  have 
indicated  would  be  represented  in  the  order  of  the  books 
of  James.  But  it  might  serve  as  an  explanation  of  their 
form  and  texture,  and  of  all  the  peculiarities  of  his 
method  as  we  have  made  them  out.  Naturally  a  book 
devoted  to  the  inward  life  of  a  group  of  people  would  be 
nothing  without  its  "idea."  But  the  strict  limitation  of 
the  action  to  the  consciousness  of  these  people  would 
insure  against  undue  abstractness  in  the  idea,  would 
transform  idea  into  "picture."  The  succession  of  inci 
dents  in  an  ordinary  story  would  in  such  a  narrative  be 
represented  by  the  process  of  "revelation"  of  the  picture. 
Suspense  would  have  reference  not  to  what  might  happen 
but  to  the  subjective  reverberation  of  what  happens.  In  a 
record  of  inward  life  it  is  obvious  how  important  must  be 
the  choice  and  maintenance  of  a  point  of  view.  It  is 
almost  absolutely  essential  that  the  center  of  interest 
should  be  a  person  of  penetrating  intelligence.  It  is  plain 
how  this  subjective  bias  would  affect  the  nature  of  the 
dialogue,  making  it  less  picturesque,  more  fine-drawn 
and  close-knit,  being  the  record  of  mental  exploration 
carried  on  by  several  persons  in  concert.  This  is  true  of 
the  dialogue  even  in  those  more  dramatic  situations 
involving  tense  oppositions  of  will,  and  gives  its  peculiar 
character  to  the  "drama"  of  James.  The  exclusive 
interest  in  mental  exploration  explains  to  a  large  extent 
the  wholesale  "eliminations,"  which  in  turn  relate  them 
selves  to  the  "neutral  tone"  of  James's  writing.  And 
the  almost  complete  abstraction  from  the  world  of  com- 


156  The  Method  of  Henry  James 


mon  accident  and  circumstance,  the  confinement  of  atten 
tion  to  the  realm  of  spiritual  reactions,  gives  to  the  work 
of  James  its  insubstantial,  its  romantic,  even  fantastic, 
character,  which  makes  it  the  scorn  of  the  "general,"  the 
despair  of  the  conscientious,  and  the  supreme  entertain 
ment  of  those  who  like  it. 

Above  all  does  the  exclusive  concern  with  the  inward 
life  of  his  people  explain  the  dominance  of  ethical  con 
siderations  and  at  the  same  time  perhaps  the  peculiar 
character  of  those  involved.  For  the  characters  of  James 
the  faculty  of  supreme  importance  is  the  intelligence,  or 
insight,  the  faculty  of  perceiving  "values"  beyond  those 
utilities  upon  which  everyone  agrees.  Of  such  im 
material  values  there  are  two  general  groups,  both  of 
great  importance  and  of  unfailing  concern  to  the  people 
of  James.  The  first  group  includes  social  and  esthetic 
values,  which  I  class  together  because  of  their  close 
association  in  the  characters'  minds,  and  because  of  their 
being  on  a  common  level  as  contrasted  with  the  other 
group  of  values, — the  spiritual. 

Minor  classifications  we  must  here  ignore.  We  must 
ignore  those  contrasts  in  social  ideals  which  play  so  large 
a  part  in  the  earlier  stories  of  James,  but  which  in  the 
long  run  prove  to  be  of  secondary  importance.  Social 
ideals  may  appear  on  the  surface  to  be  relative;  but  at 
bottom  they  show  themselves,  for  this  conservative  phi 
losopher,  as  absolute  as  any  Platonic  Ideas.  Tact  and 
discernment,  fairness  and  modesty,  the  preference  of 
the  fine  to  the  vulgar,  the  instinct  for  the  nice  and  the 
proper,  are  after  all  traits  in  which  practically  all  his 
favored  characters  agree,  whether  they  be  of  Albany 
or  London,  Paris  or  "Woollett,"  "Flickerbridge"  or 
Rome.  There  is  one  notable  instance  in  which  the  con 
trast  is  drawn  between  a  sense  for  social  and  a  sense 


The  Figure  in  the  Carpet  157 

for  esthetic  values.  The  drama  of  "The  Tragic  Muse" 
arises  from  the  inability  of  Julia  Dallow,  socially  so 
complete,  to  comprehend  the  esthetic  life  of  Nick  Dor 
mer;  Nick  Dormer  is  himself  never  quite  able  to  make 
up  his  mind  whether  so  thoroughly  artistic  a  spirit  as 
that  of  Gabriel  Nash  is  capable  of  the  refinements  of 
gentility ;  and  Peter  Sherringham  is  in  a  similar  perplex 
ity  as  regards  the  character  of  Miriam  Rooth.  Generally 
however  the  social  and  the  esthetic  senses  are  inseparable 
for  the  people  of  James.  Mona  Brigstock  and  her  mother 
are  as  incapable  of  the  social  as  of  the  esthetic  shibboleths 
of  Fleda  Vetch  and  Mrs.  Gereth.  Isabel  Archer  receives 
in  one  undivided  flood  her  impressions  of  the  esthetic 
and  the  social  qualities  of  Madame  Merle  and  of  Gilbert 
Osmond.  The  world  of  refinements  typified  to  Hyacinth 
Robinson  by  the  Princess  Casamassima  is  a  world  in 
which  he  cannot  distinguish  the  esthetic  from  the  social 
felicities.  So  that,  on  the  whole,  we  should  be  justified 
in  employing  the  hyphenated  term  of  social-esthetic  to 
distinguish  that  type  of  intelligence  which  is  shared  by 
practically  all  the  important  characters  of  James.  Or 
we  might  serve  our  purpose  with  the  simpler,  and  equally 
comprehensive,  term,  good  taste. 

There  is  at  least  one  important  character  who  is  lack 
ing  in  good  taste  so  understood.  I  mean  Daisy  Miller, 
whose  peculiarity  lies  in  her  possession  of  a  rare  spiritual 
beauty  quite  unaccompanied  by  social  tact  and  artistic 
discernment.  But  Mr.  James  has  expressed  doubts  him 
self  as  to  the  reality  of  this  charming  poetic  creation ; 
and  the  one  romantic  exception  will  but  make  more  nota 
ble  the  almost  universal  prevalence  of  good  taste  as  a 
qualification  for  admittance  into  the  gallery  of  Henry 
James.  This  is  the  first  qualification, — that  is,  the  one 
first  to  be  considered:  one  must  successfully  stand  this 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


test  before  being  advanced  to  the  higher  one  reserved  for 
heroes  and  heroines.  It  is  good  taste  which  unites  in  one 
great  shining  company  the  otherwise  so  various  Gilbert 
Osmond  and  Isabel  Archer,  Mrs.  Brookenham  and 
Nanda,  Kate  Croy  and  Milly  Theale,  Chad  Newsome 
and  Lambert  Strether. 

The  ideal  of  James  is  clearly  a  combination,  or  rather 
a  fusion,  of  good  taste  with  spiritual  discernment,  and 
perhaps  the  most  complete,  if  not  the  most  dramatic, 
instance  of  this  fusion  is  the  last  named,  Lambert 
Strether.  For  him  there  seems  to  be  no  such  distinction 
between  esthetic  and  ethical  as  perplexes  most  of  us 
mortals.  Madame  de  Vionnet  has  a  claim  upon  Chad, 
he  thinks,  because  she  has  worked  upon  him  so  fine 
a  transformation;  and  this  character  of  Chad's,  of  her 
creation,  is  all  described  in  terms  of  esthetic  and  social 
connotation.  No  doubt  the  idea  of  an  obligation  is  a 
moral  idea  at  bottom;  but  this  obligation  is  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  legal  and  religious  code,  and  never  were 
greater  pains  taken  to  translate  moral  concept  into  the 
language  of  simple  good  taste.  In  the  mind  of  Lambert 
Strether  there  seems  to  be  no  clear  dividing  line  between 
the  categories  of  beauty  and  goodness. 

Somewhat  the  same  condition  prevails  in  the  psychol 
ogy  of  "The  Awkward  Age"  ;  and  the  tendency  is  always 
in  this  direction  in  the  stories  of  James.  But  in  many 
cases  the  distinction  is  much  sharper  between  good  taste 
and  the  moral  sense.  And  whenever  the  distinction 
appears,  the  moral  sense  is  clearly  preferred  as  the 
higher  and  rarer,  and  as  something  added  to  the  other  or 
built  upon  it.  [  Fleda  Vetch  is  preferred  to  Mrs.  Gereth 
as  being  capable  of  spiritual  discernment  in  addition  to 
possessing  the  mere  good  taste  of  which  the  latter  is  such 
a  miracle.  We  must  do  Mrs.  Gereth  the  justice  to 


The  Figure  in  the  Carpet  159 

acknowledge  that  her  devotion  to  the  Spoils  was  an  ideal 
and  unselfish  devotion,  altogether  different  from  the 
"crude  love  of  possession,"  and  that  it  gives  a  hint  of 
spiritual  quality.  But  in  any  other  and  more  human 
connection,  she  was  an  unscrupulous  because  an  unseeing 
woman.  "She  had  no  imagination  about  anybody's  life 
save  on  the  side  she  bumped  against.  Fleda  was  quite 
aware  that  she  would  have  otherwise  been  a  rare  crea 
ture,  but  a  rare  creature  was  originally  just  what  she  had 
struck  her  as  being.  Mrs.  Gereth  had  really  no  percep 
tion  of  anybody's  nature — had  only  one  question  about 
persons:  were  they  clever  or  stupid?  To  be  clever 
meant  to  know  the  'marks/  Fleda  knew  them  by  direct 
inspiration,  and  a  warm  recognition  of  this  had  been 
her  friend's  tribute  to  her  character.  The  girl  now  had 
hours  of  sombre  hope  she  might  never  see  anything 
'good'  again:  that  kind  of  experience  was  clearly  so 
broken  a  reed,  so  fallible  a  source  of  peace."9  Owen 
had  no  more  sense  for  the  "marks"  than  Mona  or  Mrs. 
Brigstock ;  but  he  was  capable  of  rising  to  Fleda's  spirit 
ual  bait.  And  so  we  are  given  the  impression  of  him  as 
really  more  clever  than  his  mother,  being  in  a  class  with 
Fleda.  And  Mrs.  Gereth  comes  to  recognize  Fleda  and 
Owen  as  "of  quite  another  race  and  another  flesh." 10 

So  it  is  that  Milly  Theale  is  preferred  to  the  superb  and 
socially  incomparable  Kate  Croy ;  that  Mitchy  and  Nanda 
are  preferred  to  the  infinitely  clever  and  subtle  mother 
of  Nanda ;  that  Isabel  Archer  is  preferred  to  the  charm 
ing  and  accomplished  Madame  Merle  and  to  Osmond, 
who  had  both  so  long  a  start  of  her  in  social  and  esthetic 

9  Vol.  X,  p.  138. 

10  Id.,  p.  222. 


160  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

cultivation.  In  each  case  the  one  preferred  has,  in  addi 
tion  to  the  common  good  taste,  the  wit  to  distinguish 
moral  beauty. 

It  is  all,  as  we  have  seen,  a  matter  of  insight.  The 
less  favored  characters,  the  false  and  the  shady  people, 
are  morally  color-blind.  It  is  always  the  same  story 
throughout  the  whole  series  of  novels.  It  is  so  in 
"Roderick  Hudson"  at  the  beginning  and  in  "The  Golden 
Bowl"  at  the  end.  In  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  it  is  a  question 
of  whether  the  Prince  Amerigo  has  enough  discernment 
to  perceive  the  superiority  of  his  wife  to  his  accomplished 
mistress.  The  "style"  of  Charlotte  has  indeed  been 
"great"  in  the  closing  scenes  of  the  drama,  but  great 
in  a  way  far  below  the  spiritual  fineness  of  Maggie. 
Maggie  is  "great"  enough  to  perceive  the  greatness  of 
Charlotte.  "Isn't  she  too  splendid?"  she  asks  her  hus 
band.  "That's  our  help,  you  see."  .  .  .  "See?"  says 
Amerigo,  triumphantly  meeting  his  final  test,  "I  see  noth 
ing  but  you!'  Roderick  Hudson  is  an  artist  of  genius, 
with  endowments  infinitely  superior  to  those  of  his  friend 
and  benefactor  in  every  respect  except  this  of  spiritual 
discernment.  It  is  only  at  the  end  of  his  life  that  he  has 
a  glimpse  of  what  he  has  missed.  It  is  in  his  last  con 
versation  with  Rowland,  in  which  the  latter  has  finally 
told  him  of  his  own  love  for  Mary.  Roderick  comes  to 
see  how  "hideous"  is  the  appearance  he  has  made.  "Do 
you  really  care,"  Rowland  is  prompted  to  ask,  "for  what 
you  may  have  appeared?"  "Certainly.  I've  been  dam 
nably  stupid.  Isn't  an  artist  supposed  to  be  a  man  of  fine 
perceptions?  I  haven't,  as  it  turns  out,  had  one"11 

The  stories  of  James  are  a  continuous  record  of  such 

"  Vol.  I,  p.  512. 


The  Figure  in  the  Carpet  161 

"fine  perceptions"  had  or  missed.  The  stuff  is  as  airy  as 
gossamer :  not  at  all 

"Things  done,  that  took  the  eye  and  had  the  price." 

Hence  the  notorious  difficulty  and  inaccessibility  of 
James.  And  hence  the  romantic  exhilaration  of  his  work 
for  so  many  denizens  of  a  world  in  which  the  realization 
of  ideals  is  so  rare  and  hard  of  accomplishment.  May 
this  be  the  secret  of  his  great  following  among  women? 
His  greatest  appeal  is  perhaps  to  those  whose  lives  have 
yielded  the  minimum  of  realization,  to  those  who  have  the 
least  control  over  the  gross  materials  of  life. 


THE  ART  OF  HENRY  JAMES 
PART  TWO:   TOWARDS  A  METHOD 


I 

OBSCURE  BEGINNINGS 

Young  writers  who  have  had  little  success  with  their 
first  ventures  may  take  comfort  in  the  contemplation  of 
the  early  work  of  Henry  James.  He  is  one  of  those 
writers  of  great  distinction  who  have  had  a  long  road 
to  success.  It  is  not  that  he  had  difficulty  in  placing  his 
early  experiments  in  fiction.  Some  acquaintance  with 
editors  gave  him  access  very  early  to  American  maga 
zines  of  the  best  sort.  Not  merely  did  the  "Nation"  and 
the  "North  American  Review"  make  a  regular  practice 
of  printing  his  compact  and  competent  critical  reviews. 
No  less  an  organ  than  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  printed 
over  his  signature  story  after  story  of  much  more  doubt 
ful  merit.  Is  it  possible  that  the  conductors  of  the  great 
"Atlantic"  applied  in  the  seventies  less  exacting  tests  to 
candidates  for  publicity,  or  that  we  have  been  overesti 
mating  the  general  quality  of  the  literature  produced  in 
those  palmy  days  ?  Or  did  they  perhaps,  with  miraculous 
insight,  discover  in  these  green  shoots  the  promise  of  our 
story-teller's  rich  maturity,  and  deliberately  offer  him 
their  pages  for  that  public  exhibition  which  is  so  needful 
a  step  in  literary  apprenticeship?  There  was  doubtless 
promise  in  these  early  tales;  there  was  certainly  very 
mediocre  performance.  And  most  remarkable  is  the 
contrast  between  these  commonplace  stories  and  the 
mature  work  of  an  author  who — whatever  else  may  be 
said  of  him — can  hardly  be  denied  the  title  of  distinction. 
For  the  length  of  nearly  two  decades,  at  least,  his  path 
is  strewn  with  the  remains  of  feeble  and  abortive  experi 
ment. 


166  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

If  in  this  chapter  I  dwell  more  than  elsewhere  in  my 
study  upon  the  tales,  it  is  because  they  were  his  very 
earliest  work.  Mr.  James  was  later  well  aware  of  the 
quality  of  this  early  work;  and  he  took  some  pains  to 
cover  his  tracks.  In  the  years  1907  to  1909  appeared  the 
"New  York"  edition  of  his  novels  and  tales,  in  which 
he  established  the  canon  of  his  works  of  fiction.  Most 
of  his  earlier  tales,  as  well  as  one  full-fledged  novel,  were 
designedly  shut  out  from  this  company  of  his  cherished 
offspring.  Half  of  the  earlier  tales  had  never  even 
appeared  in  book  form;  and  most  of  the  rest  languish 
still  in  the  oblivion  of  rare  and  little-sought  volumes.  It 
is  only  the  curious  historian,  bent  on  tracing  the  path  of 
genius,  who  does  him  the  doubtful  service  of  bringing 
to  light  these  repudiated  children  of  his  brain.  And  the 
present  historian  will  make  as  brief  as  possible  the  ear 
liest  chapter  of  this  chronicle,  that  dealing  with  the 
twenty-five  tales  and  the  one  novel  published  before  the 
year  1875.  Not  all  the  tales,  nor  by  any  means  all  the 
novels,  produced  since  1875  were  included  in  the  New 
York  edition.  But  after  that  date  we  may  say  the  author 
had  struck  some  kind  of  a  gait,  and  what  he  produced  in 
this  middle  period  can  never  be  dismissed  without  more 
careful  scrutiny.  The  very  crudeness  of  the  early  stories, 
however,  gives  them  some  title  to  consideration  in  any 
analytic  study.  What  was  the  matter  with  these  stories  ? 
In  what  respects  do  they  fall  short  of  the  author's  notion 
of  a  good  story  ? 

A  curious  circumstance  meets  us  at  the  start.  If  we 
divide  his  tales  into  two  groups  of  "realistic"  and  "roman 
tic,"  we  instantly  observe  that  it  was  in  the  romantic 
tales  that  James  first  struck  his  vein.  I  suppose  one 
would  naturally  apply  the  term  realistic  to  the  best-known 
work  of  Henry  James.  At  any  rate  he  will  hardly  be 


Obscure  Beginnings  167 

thought  of  as  a  romantic  story-teller  in  the  ordinary 
sense.  And  yet  the  first  of  all  his  tales  to  merit  admission 
to  the  canon  were  the  distinctly  romantic  stories,  "A 
Passionate  Pilgrim"  and  "The  Madonna  of  the  Future." 
The  first  tale  of  a  soberer  cast  thus  to  be  honored  is 
"Madame  de  Mauves,"  which  appeared  just  before  "Rod 
erick  Hudson."  One  significant  fact  here  stares  us  in 
the  face.  The  first  stories  good  enough  for  the  collective 
edition  were  all  laid  in  Europe.  A  glance  at  the  New 
York  edition  will  furnish  the  correlative  fact  that,  of  all 
the  novels  and  tales  included  in  its  twenty-four  volumes, 
not  half  a  dozen  are  laid  in  the  native  land  of  Henry 
James.1  And  one  further  observation  will  complete  our 
enlightenment.  In  every  one  of  the  realistic  tales  pre 
ceding  "Madame  de  Mauves,"  the  story  is  laid  in  the 
United  States ;  and  this  is  true  of  four  out  of  five  of  all 
the  novels  up  to  1886  excluded  from  the  canon.  If  it 
was  in  romance  that  the  young  author  first  found  himself, 
it  was  because  in  romance  he  first  found  himself  in  the 
old  world. 

At  first  blush  one  might  be  inclined  to  indict  Mr.  James 
for  want  of  patriotism,  thus  to  repudiate  his  distinctively 
American  stories.  Can  it  be  that — in  contrast  to  one  of 
his  characters — he  had  never  felt  "certain  natural,  filial 
longings  for  this  dear  American  mother  of  us  all"?2 
Such  an  impression  will  be  at  once  dispelled  by  the  read 
ing  of  Mr.  James's  reminiscences  of  his  youth,  in  which 
he  recalls  with  such  fondness  his  life  in  New  York  and 
Newport,  Cambridge  and  Boston,  during  the  intervals 
of  the  family's  foreign  sojourn.  His  passion  for  "Eu- 

1  This  does  not  include  stories,  like  "Roderick  Hudson,"  in 
which  the  scene  is  American  for  a  very  small  part  of  the  whole 
narrative. 

2  From  "A  Light  Man,"  in  "The  Galaxy,"  July,  1869. 


168  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

rope"  seems  always  to  have  left  room  in  his  heart  for 
a  strong,  if  not  uncritical  love  of  his  native  land.  And 
second  thought  will  lead  us  to  exclaim :  What  great  sacri 
fices  he  did  make  on  the  altar  of  patriotism!  Unless, 
after  all,  we  had  better  say,  on  the  altar  of  realism !  For 
I  fancy  the  poor  man  ridden  in  the  early  years  with  a 
notion  that  telling  the  truth  in  fiction  means  telling  the 
truth  about  your  own  people  "located"  (as  Americans 
say)  on  your  own  familiar  heath.  How  could  he  dis 
regard  the  examples  of  Balzac  and  George  Eliot  and 
Turgenieff?  And  so  he  kept  up  for  years  the  bootless 
effort  to  make  stories  of  Americans  in  New  York  and 
Boston,  in  Newport  and  Sharon  Springs.  As  late  as 
1885  he  was  still  cultivating  the  forlorn  hope  with  "The 
Bostonians."  That  was  his  last  attack  in  force.3  And 
a  touching  tribute  it  was  to  his  New  England  conscience. 
The  main  reason  for  James's  failure  to  make  anything 
of  "the  American  scene"  is  obvious  enough  to  anyone 
familiar  with  his  most  characteristic  work.  If  his  central 
figures  are  likely  to  be  women  of  a  certain  beautiful  clear 
simplicity  of  soul,  his  backgrounds,  as  we  have  seen,  are 
even  more  likely  to  consist  in  a  social  order  full  of 
sophistications  and  complexities,  giving  the  effect  of  a 
darker  and  more  troubled  coloring.  If  his  ethics  are 
transcendental  New  England,  his  manners  are  social 
Europe.  But  if  he  can  sometimes  find  the  right  ethics 
in  the  old  world,  he  can  never  find  the  manners  any 
where  else.  If  his  central  figure  is  most  often  American, 
his  background  must  be  invariably  European.  And  the 
background  is  in  the  stories  of  Henry  James  as  dominant 
in  the  final  effect  as  the  harmonic  background  in  a  song 

3  Unless  we  take  into  account  "The  Ivory  Tower,"  left  un 
finished  at  his  death,  and  published  posthumously,  the  scene  of 
which  is  laid  in  Newport. 


Obscure  Beginnings  169 

of  Debussy.  The  melody  itself  is  transformed  by  the 
magic  of  harmonization.  The  developed  art  of  James  is 
greatly  an  affair  of  relationships  and  adjustments,  of 
carefully  disposed  lights  and  qualified  shadows,  of  nice 
gradations  and  subtle  intimations.  Mr.  James  often  tells 
us  how  fond  he  is  of  "thickened  motive  and  accumulated 
character."  He  likes  to  deal  with  situations  in  which 
action  and  motive  are  much  affected  by  the  pressure  of 
convention,  by  traditions  and  points  of  view  implying 
a  long-established,  deep-rooted,  widely  ramifying  society. 
He  finds  more  for  explication  and  representation  in  the 
refinements  and  indirections  of  a  somewhat  decadent 
order  than  in  the  brusque  downrightness  of  social 
pioneers.  All  this  implies  a  longer  cultivation  of  the  arts 
of  leisure,  a  longer  familiarity  with  the  fruits  of  social 
privilege,  than  could  be  found  in  his  Boston,  where 
culture  was  so  largely  literary  and  foreign  in  its  refer 
ence,  in  his  Albany  and  New  York,  where — as  he  tells 
us  in  "A  Small  Boy" — a  young  man  had  no  alternative 
to  the  counting-house  but  a  short  life  of  cheap  dissipation. 
This  European  background  was  prized  both  as  physical 
setting  and  as  social  milieu.  For  many  readers  the 
interest  of  these  stories  is  to  a  very  large  extent  the 
interest  of  Paris  and  London,  of  Venice  and  Rome.  Of 
course,  in  the  simplest  material  way,  the  parks  and  monu 
ments,  the  drawing-rooms  and  country  houses  of  Europe 
contribute  an  element  of  the  splendid  and  sumptuous, 
as  the  titles  of  Lord  and  Princess  lend  their  glitter  to  the 
social  effect.  When  Nick  Dormer  and  Julia  Dallow  take 
their  bocks  in  the  open  air  of  Paris,  we  note  that  "beyond 
the  Boulevard  des  Capucines  [the  city]  flared  through 
the  warm  evening  like  a  vast  bazaar,  and  opposite  the 
Cafe  Durand  the  Madeleine  rose  theatrical,  a  high  artful 
decor  before  the  footlights  of  the  Rue  Royale."  When 


j/o  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

Milly  Theale  comes  abroad  to  make  what  she  can  of  the 
few  brief  moments  of  her  life,  she  must  needs  com 
mandeer  a  Venetian  palace  for  the  scene  of  her  inter 
national  drama.  The  dark  domestic  struggle  of  Maggie 
Verver  is  spaciously  enacted  in  the  gardens  and  along 
the  terraces  at  Fawns;  and  her  terrible  quiet  encounter 
with  Charlotte  takes  place  in  the  midst  of  the  grand 
drawing-room  "under  the  old  lustres  of  Venice  and  the 
eyes  of  several  great  portraits  more  or  less  contemporary 
with  these."  When  the  other  members  of  the  party 
arrive  "at  the  open  door  at  the  end  of  the  room"  to 
witness  the  "prodigious  kiss"  with  which  the  interview 
is  sealed,  we  cannot  fail  to  realize  the  scene  as  one 
mounted  handsomely  upon  a  stage  of  regal  distances. 
One  is  struck  on  review  with  the  large  number  of  in 
stances  in  which  we  have  to  do  with  precious  works 
of  art  like  Mr.  Verver's  collections  and  the  "old  things" 
of  Poynton,  as  well  as  the  more  modest  furniture  of 
Gilbert  Osmond  and  Chad  Newsome,  of  Edward  Rosier 
and  even  Maria  Gostrey.  Even  the  socialist  Hyacinth 
Robinson  was  gradually  reconciled  to  an  order  of  things 
which  had  made  possible  so  great  an  accumulation  of 
beauty.  And  the  prime  element  in  the  beauty  of  things 
European  is  that  "tone  of  time"  which  was  so  rarely 
felt  by  James  in  connection  with  anything  American.4 

But  however  seductive  the  European  settings  in  a 
physical  way,  it  is  the  social  milieu  that  is  most  indis 
pensable  to  the  logic  of  the  story.  It  was  quite  as  much 
in  the  social  order  itself  that  Hyacinth  Robinson  felt 
the  beautifying  effect  of  the  tone  of  time.  It  was  there 
above  all  that  he  and  his  creator  found  that  high  order 
liness  and  convenience  enjoyed  at  least  by  the  privileged 

4  It  is,  to  be  sure,  of  old  New  York  society  that  the  phrase  is 
used  in  the  tale  of  "Crapy  Cornelia,"  in  "The  Finer  Grain." 


Obscure  Beginnings  171 

few.  The  social  order  in  Europe  was  actually  an  order. 
It  had  long  since  taken  on  its  recognizable  forms.  It 
was  therefore  so  much  found  for  the  painter  of  life  in  the 
way  of  arrangement,  pattern,  composition.  And  for  the 
painter  of  social  life,  it  was  pre-eminently  a  social  order. 
The  characters  of  Henry  James  are  never  naked  souls 
meeting  in  some  uncharted  realm  of  romance.  They 
are  social  beings  locally  conditioned  and  very  much 
clothed.  And  it  is  not  in  khaki  and  broad-brimmed  hats 
and  the  riding-boots  of  the  "greaser"  that  they  are 
clothed.  It  is  in  the  discreet  and  conventional,  if  often 
shining,  garb  of  the  tea  table  and  the  dining  room.  The 
kind  of  relationships  in  which  they  are  involved  are  only 
such  as  can  be  maintained  in  connection  with  the  normal 
contacts  of  organized  and,  to  use  a  very  up-to-date  term, 
of  standardized  society.  Everybody  has  been  delighted 
with  certain  refreshing  scenes  in  George  Meredith, — 
the  scene  in  which  one  heroine  is  discovered  as  a  "hag 
gard  Venus"  perched  on  some  inaccessible  crag  of  the 
Alps,  the  scene  in  which  an  athletic  hero  and  heroine 
plight  their  unconventional  troth  beneath  the  waters  of 
the  Atlantic.  Such  things  are  impossible  to  the  less  vivid 
creatures  of  our  American  novelist.  These  persons 
never  dream  of  any  excursion  beyond  the  strict  bounds 
of  social  etiquette.  The  very  air  they  breathe — from 
the  moment  they  get  to  Europe — is  the  purged  and 
walled-in  air  of  the  bienseances.  They  are  creatures 
of  a  system  in  which  everything  is  done  decently  and  in 
order.  They  would  be  quite  lost  without  the  smooth- 
running  social  machine  which  carries  them  so  securely 
through  their  day  of  morning  calls  and  afternoon  teas. 

It  was  long  before  James  could  bring  himself  to  make 
an  acknowledgment  so  wanting  in  filial  piety.  He  hated 
no  doubt  to  confess  himself  beaten  on  his  own  ground. 


IJ2  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

And  then  he  had  not  yet  really  made  out  his  formula. 
But  all  the  while  the  truth  was  there  before  his  troubled 
eyes :  the  settings  that  he  needed  were  not  to  be  found 
at  home.  Our  sun  is  too  fierce  and  bright,  our  shadows 
too  wanting  in  richness  and  mystery,  for  the  purposes 
of  his  fine  brush.  Our  society  was  too  crude  and  un 
formed,  our  tongue  untutored.  There  was  here  no  drift 
of  centuries.  There  was  no  elegant  and  cultivated  leisure. 
It  might  all  be  symbolized  by  the  institution  of  five 
o'clock  tea.  In  one  of  his  latest  tales,  James  represents 
a  poor  English  tradesman  as  having  his  first  personal 
introduction  to  this  custom  "known  to  him  only  by  the 
contemporary  novel  of  manners  and  the  catchy  adver 
tisements  of  table  linen."5  What  should  our  author  do 
without  the  aid  of  this  "luxurious  rite,"  as  essential  to  the 
unfolding  of  his  story  as  are  the  morning  visits  and 
country  balls  for  Jane  Austen  ?  Well,  in  the  sixties  and 
seventies  there  seems  to  have  been,  in  Albany  and  Boston 
and  Northampton,  a  singular  scantiness  in  the  provision 
of  five  o'clock  tea. 

And  so  the  young  author,  obstinately  insisting  on 
patriotic  realism,  had  resort  to  most  heroic  means  for 
supplying  the  want.  He  will  strike  through  to  what  lies 
below  convention,  and  will  lay  bare  the  depths  of  human 
souls.  Perhaps  the  most  constant  cause  of  his  failure 
in  these  earlier  tales  is  the  overweening  audacity  of  this 
heroism.  He  is  writing  clearly  in  the  spirit  of  George 
Eliot.  He  seems  to  say  to  himself :  go  to !  let  us  give  an 
account  of  human  nature,  its  strength  and  weakness.  Let 
us  take  the  plainest  of  types,  those  that  fall  most  natur 
ally  under  our  observation.  That  will  be  a  modest  under- 

5  From  "The  Bench  of  Desolation,"  in  "The  Finer  Grain," 
p.  274. 


Obscure  Beginnings 


taking,  he  seems  to  think;  but  he  will  shirk  none  of  his 
responsibilities  for  the  character  of  his  people.  The  first 
of  his  tales,  dating  from  1865,  is  "The  Story  of  a  Year."6 
It  is  devoted  to  the  soul  of  a  New  England  country  girl 
engaged  to  a  soldier  at  the  front.  She  is  a  well-meaning 
creature,  but  unequal  to  the  strain  put  on  her  loyalty 
by  the  long  absence  of  her  betrothed.  She  carries  on 
a  harmless  flirtation  with  a  prepossessing  young  man 
from  a  neighboring  town  ;  and  to  him  she  falls  in  the  end, 
with  the  benison  of  her  soldier-lover  brought  back  from 
the  war  mortally  wounded.  Her  lover  judges  the  girl 
more  kindly  than  does  his  mother,  —  a  hard,  devoted 
farmer's  wife  who  knows  the  difference  between  a  stead 
fast  soul  and  a  flirt.  ...  It  is,  you  may  say,  a  simple, 
unambitious  theme.  .  .  .  Too  simple  to  be  unambitious  ! 
Such  homespun  can  be  given  distinction  only  by  the  cut. 
The  author  has  no  alternative.  He  must  interest  us  in 
the  soul  of  his  girl;  he  must  display  with  convincing 
truth  her  processes  of  thought.  The  latter  obligation  he 
takes  most  seriously,  paying  us  with  paragraphs  of  grave 
analysis  in  the  tone  of  George  Eliot.  And  yet  somehow 
he  fails  to  interest  us  very  deeply  in  the  soul  of  this  most 
ordinary  girl.  She  is  no  Maggie  Tulliver,  no  Hetty 
Sorrel.  This  is  realism  of  a  rigor,  as  if  the  author 
had  bound  himself  by  some  self-denying  ordinance. 

In  "Master  Eustace"7  the  author  allows  himself  more 
rope,  and  gives  us  more  for  our  money.  For  he 
provides  here  the  more  sensational  theme  of  parentage 
unknown  and  revealed  at  the  crisis  of  the  action;  and 
it  is  a  tale  of  secret  sin  and  loud-voiced  passion.  In  all 
this  one  would  hardly  recognize  the  James  of  later  years. 
But  the  main  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  development  of  an 

8  In  "The  Atlantic,"  March,  1865. 
7  "The  Galaxy,"  October,  1871. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


ugly  character  in  a  spoiled  child.  It  is  that  character- 
development  to  which  the  author  feels  his  deepest  obliga 
tion.  And  this,  in  its  unmodified  banality,  is  equally  out 
of  the  familiar  range  of  the  master's  art. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  why  a  given  character  lives. 
It  is  often  easier  to  make  out  why  such  another  fails 
to  come  to  life,  —  why  such  a  story  remains  a  shapeless 
heap  of  matter  without  animation.  And  in  these  early 
tales  of  James  we  are  at  once  struck,  for  one  thing,  with 
his  reckless  prodigality  of  matter.  His  early  tales  are 
generally  novels  in  little,  "tabloid"  novels.  James  never 
indeed  conceived  the  short  story  in  the  same  rigorous 
fashion  as  Kipling  or  Maupassant  or  their  disciples.  And 
yet,  in  his  later  work,  the  tale  —  or  the  nouvelle,  as  he 
likes  to  call  his  favorite  length  of  short  story  —  is  dis 
tinguished  from  the  novel  by  the  amount  and  magnitude 
of  what  it  undertakes.  The  novel  grapples  with  the 
central  facts  of  the  lives  of  several  persons:  it  involves 
a  full  and  rounded  development  of  their  characters,  a 
considerable  survey  of  their  careers,  and  a  leisurely  indi 
cation  of  the  accessories  in  the  way  of  secondary  charac 
ters  and  milieu.  Whether  or  not  covering  a  long  course 
of  years,  it  takes  into  account  a  large  number  of  scenes, 
each  one  of  which  is  to  be  treated  at  length.  The  tale 
is  likely  to  concern  itself  with  less  central,  less  monu 
mental  situations,  —  rather  with  detachable  bits  and  phases 
of  a  life.  Few  of  the  characters  are  to  be  developed,  and 
these  generally  only  on  one  or  two  sides.  The  action 
is  likely  to  be  confined  to  a  short  period,  and  within  this 
period  to  a  carefully  limited  number  of  occasions. 
James  was  very  proud  of  his  expertness  in  turning  round 
—  as  he  describes  the  performance  —  in  so  small  a  space 
as  he  allows  himself.  This  he  accomplishes  by  virtue 


Obscure  Beginnings  175 

of  the  most  strict  economy,  by  all  sorts  of  tricks  of  fore 
shortening  and  suggestion. 

In  the  early  tales,  however,  he  shows  no  sign  of  such 
expertness.  Indeed  he  seems  unaware  of  the  need  of  it. 
He  conceives  a  plot  big  enough  for  a  novel,  and  disposes 
of  it  within  the  compass  of  a  very  short  story.  He  sets 
out  bravely  to  tell  us  all  about  a  set  of  persons;  and  it 
must  puzzle  him  to  find  how  soon  it  is  done.  Economy 
is  the  last  thing  that  seems  necessary,  especially  in  the 
matter  of  characterization.  Every  tale  begins  with  a  long 
account  of  the  characters;  or  if,  by  happier  inspiration, 
we  are  treated  first  to  a  bit  of  incident  or  dialogue,  we 
are  soon  halted  for  some  lengthy  explanation  about  the 
participants.  Thus  in  "Poor  Richard,"8  the  author  per 
mits  himself  a  page  or  two  of  conversation  near  the 
beginning,  only  to  pull  himself  up  shortly  with  the  follow 
ing  remark:  "To  appreciate  the  importance  of  this  con 
versation,  the  reader  must  know  that  Miss  Gertrude 
Whittaker  was  a  young  woman  of  four-and-twenty, 
whose  father,  recently  deceased,  had  left  her  alone  in  the 
world,  with  a  great  fortune,  accumulated  by  various 
enterprises  in  that  part  of  the  State.  He  had  appointed 
a  distant  and  elderly  kinswoman,  by  name  Miss  Pen- 
dexter  [who  never  again  puts  her  nose  into  the  story], 
as  his  daughter's  household  companion ;  and  an  old  friend 
of  his  own,  known  to  combine  shrewdness  with  integrity 
[a  person  equally  alien  to  the  story],  as  her  financial 
adviser.  Motherless,  country-bred  and  homely  featured, 
Gertrude  on  arriving  at  maturity  had  neither  the  tastes 
nor  the  manners  of  a  fine  lady.  Of  robust  and  active 
make,  with  a  warm  heart,  a  cool  head,  and  a  very  pretty 
talent  for  affairs,  she  was,  in  virtue  both  of  her  wealth 
and  her  tact,  one  of  the  chief  figures  of  the  neighbor- 

8  In  "The  Atlantic,"  June-August,  1867. 


176  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

hood."  And  a  long  paragraph  is  devoted  to  the  further 
account  of  this  lady's  character  and  situation ;  then  several 
columns  to  the  character  and  history  of  the  two  men  who 
are  to  be  rivals  for  her  affections.  We  should  now  be 
thoroughly  documented,  thoroughly  acquainted  with  these 
persons.  Instead  of  that  we  are  just  tired.  We  are 
oppressed  with  the  mere  weight  of  undigested  informa 
tion.  We  have  been  given  too  much  and  too  little.  We 
have  listened  to  so  many  general  statements  unilluminated 
by  reference  to  any  particular  occasion  that  we  have  quite 
lost  the  sense  of  reading  a  story  or  making  the  acquaint 
ance  of  interesting  people.  In  the  later  stories,  whether 
long  or  short,  we  make  acquaintance  by  more  gradual 
and  more  human  degrees.  We  are  asked  merely  to 
observe  people  in  action ;  we  are  not  expected  to  swallow 
the  complete  formula  of  their  character.  We  are  left 
to  draw  our  inferences  from  the  gesture,  physical  or 
mental,  with  which  they  greet  the  words  and  acts  of  their 
companions.  And  so  we  have  the  impression  of  story 
or  drama,  and  feel  ourselves  agreeably  entertained.  And 
whatever  we  do  learn  about  these  people  is  well  learned, 
being  a  part  not  of  our  information  but  of  our  very 
feeling  about  them. 

A  similar  pitfall  yawns  for  the  young  experimenter 
in  the  number  of  scenes  treated.  Again  he  is  generous 
in  his  offering.  And  again  the  ungrateful  reader  com 
plains  of  there  being  at  once  too  much  and  too  little. 
There  are  far  too  many  scenes,  and  no  one  of  them  is 
adequately  developed.  They  are  not  so  much  actual 
scenes  as  notes  for  scenes,  abstracts, — making  up  together 
a  good  preliminary  sketch  or  scenario  of  play  or  novel. 

Even  at  this  early  period  James  was  groping  his  way 
towards  the  sort  of  themes  which  occupied  him  later. 
But  he  had  not  hit  upon  the  technique  suited  to  their 


Obscure  Beginnings  if] 

development.  "My  Friend  Bingham,"9  for  example,  is 
the  story  of  a  man  who  has  accidentally  shot  the  only 
child  of  a  poor  widowed  woman.  He  is  filled  with 
remorseful  compassion,  and  she  on  her  side  is  large 
minded  enough  to  feel  compassion  rather  than  resent 
ment  towards  him.  And  out  of  their  mutual  pity  grow 
esteem  and  love.  So  freakish  are  the  ways  of  feeling. 
It  is  a  pretty  psychological  problem,  and  in  conception 
not  unworthy  of  its  distinguished  author.  But  the  story 
is  told  in  so  bald  and  summary  a  fashion  that  he  would 
be  the  first  to  say  it  is  practically  not  told  at  all.  It  con 
sists  of  nine  distinct  scenes,  exclusive  of  the  long  intro 
ductory  account  of  "my  friend  Bingham"  and  of  "my" 
relations  with  him;  and  the  whole  history  is  disposed 
of  in  thirteen  pages  of  the  "Atlantic" !  The  all-impor 
tant  matter  in  this  story  is  naturally  the  attitude  of 
Bingham  towards  Mrs.  Hicks  and  her  attitude  towards 
him;  and  in  the  later  years  these  attitudes  would  have 
been  indicated  with  great  fineness  and  at  some  length 
in  the  course  of  their  several  meetings.  In  this  tale,  but 
three  of  the  nine  scenes  are  devoted  to  these  meetings, 
and  they  are  disposed  of  with  amazing  brevity.  The  final 
scene  records  an  agreement  to  marry  on  the  part  of  these 
two  persons  in  the  presence  of  the  narrator.  But  most 
summary  is  the  account  of  how  they  looked,  what  they 
thought  and  what  they  said  on  this  occasion.  The  author 
seems  indeed  to  have  had  an  uneasy  sense  that  something 
is  wanting  to  the  success  of  his  story,  and  he  tries  to  cut 
the  Gordian  knot  with  one  slashing  stroke.  "What  honest 
George  Bingham  said,  what  I  said,  is  of  little  account. 
The  proper  conclusion  of  my  story  lies  in  the  highly 
dramatic  fact  that  out  of  the  depths  of  her  bereavement — 
out  of  her  loneliness  and  her  pity — this  richly  gifted 
9  'The  Atlantic,"  March,  1867. 


i?8  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

woman  had  emerged,  responsive  to  the  passion  of  him 
who  had  wronged  her  all  but  as  deeply  as  he  loved  her." 

Which  is  as  much  as  to  say:  here  is  my  story  in  one 
sentence — what  is  the  use  of  stringing  it  out?  As  if  the 
abstract  idea  of  a  story  were  the  story  itself,  in  all  its 
concrete  embodiment,  all  its  wealth  of  convincing  cir 
cumstance.  In  later  years  the  author  came  to  realize 
only  too  well,  some  feel,  what  is  involved  in  the  art 
of  representation.  He  is  able  to  judge  even  so  masterly 
a  performance  as  "The  Tragic  Muse,"  and  say  of  certain 
parts  of  that  story:  "The  whole  of  [this],  as  the  book 
gives  it,  is  too  rapid  and  sudden  .  .  .  :  processes,  periods, 
intervals,  stages,  degrees,  connexions,  may  be  easily 
enough  and  barely  enough  named,  may  be  unconvincingly 
stated,  in  fiction,  to  the  deep  discredit  of  the  writer,  but 
it  remains  the  very  deuce  to  represent  them  .  .  .  ;  and 
this  even  though  the  novelist  who  doesn't  represent,  and 
represent  'all  the  time/  is  lost."10  In  "My  Friend  Bing- 
ham"  and  the  other  early  tales,  he  seldom  dreams  of 
representing  his  periods  and  stages.  He  feels  it  suffi 
cient  to  tell  us,  of  certain  psychological  processes:  this 
is  what  happened;  with  no  effort  to  indicate,  to  make 
palpable,  the  degrees  by  which  it  came  about.  The  differ 
ence  is  not  that  between  the  novel  and  the  short  story. 
In  extreme  contrast  to  the  method  of  these  early  tales 
is  that  of  tales  in  the  latest  volumes,  such,  for  example, 
as  "The  Bench  of  Desolation"  in  "The  Finer  Grain." 
In  that  story  we  assist  at  the  gradual  process  by  which 
a  man  and  a  woman,  long  estranged,  come  at  last  to  a 
mutual  understanding  and  to  the  same  relationship  as  that 
reached  by  George  Bingham  and  Mrs.  Hicks.  But  there 
we  follow  in  minute  detail  the  largely  wordless  tug-of- 
war  between  the  two  parties,  the  final  result  of  which  is 

10  Vol.  VII,  p.  xix. 


Obscure  Beginnings  //p 

that  each  one,  while  maintaining  his  own  particular 
dignity  and  advantage,  yet  manages  to  yield  to  what 
proves  their  common  interest.  The  author,  in  conducting 
his  story  to  this  conclusion,  lets  us  lose  no  single  drop 
of  the  feeling — at  least  of  the  man,  from  whose  point 
of  view  the  narrative  is  given — with  which  these  manoeu 
vres  are  accompanied. 

Not  all  readers  are  equally  fond  of  this  manner  of 
story-telling;  and  some  will  simply  scorn  this  art  as  an 
art  not  worth  mastering.  They  must  at  least  grant  that 
in  such  work  the  author  does  not  fail  for  want  of  develop 
ing  the  latent  possibilities  of  the  scene  on  the  side  of 
psychology.  They  will  not  deny  its  distinctive  quality. 
And  that  is  more  than  can  be  predicated  of  the  flavorless 
tales  of  the  prentice  period.  One  source  of  weakness 
in  the  early  tales  closely  related  to  that  we  have  been 
discussing  is  the  want  of  attention  to  the  point  of  view. 
In  the  first  ten  of  these  tales  (with  one  exception),  the 
author  had  no  better  inspiration  than  to  offer  us  his  own 
omniscient  survey  of  the  action.  This  means  there  is 
no  point  of  view  at  all  steadily  maintained.  In  the  later 
years  of  this  period,  he  was  making  some  feeble  experi 
ments  towards  a  more  effective  method,  often  employing 
the  device  of  an  interested  observer  who  tells  the  story 
in  the  first  person.  But  in  all  these  prentice  years  little 
is  gained  by  this  device,  owing  to  the  author's  want  of 
realization  of  what  should  or  might  come  within  the  field 
of  observation  of  his  chosen  story-teller.  Sometimes, 
as  in  "My  Friend  Bingham,"  he  fails  to  choose  the  person 
best  fitted  to  follow  the  action,  or  he  fails  to  select  and 
develop  those  scenes  in  which  his  observation  might  serve 
best  to  illuminate  it.  Sometimes,  as  in  "Master 
Eustace,"  he  simply  transfers  to  the  person  who  tells 
the  story  his  own  editorial  omniscience,  thus  by  one 


180  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

stroke  sacrificing  the  technical  advantages  of  his  method. 
In  one  tale,  "A  Light  Man,"  he  tried  the  interesting  ex 
periment  of  having  a  person  of  mean  and  frivolous 
character  betray  himself  in  the  confidence  of  his  diary. 
So  desperate  a  venture  he  never  made  a  second  time, 
so  far  as  I  can  remember,  even  at  the  height  of  his 
cunning. 

In  none  of  the  earlier  tales,  again,  is  the  limited  point 
of  view  made  use  of  for  developing  the  sort  of  suspense 
that  makes  the  great  charm  of  the  later  narratives  as 
stories.  Even  where  the  narrative  is  given  by  an  observer 
in  the  first  person,  he  begins  by  telling  you  more  than 
anyone  ought  to  know  at  the  start.  The  result  is  a 
complete  absence  of  that  mystery,  that  teasing  bewilder 
ment,  with  which  he  baits  his  readers  in  his  later  work. 

And  as  a  corollary  to  this,  we  observe  the  comparative 
commonplaceness  of  the  characters  themselves.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  great  aim  of  Henry  James  came  to  be 
the  treatment  of  subjects  off  the  beaten  track  of  observa 
tion,  subjects  vitally  dependent  for  effectiveness  upon 
interpretation.  The  obvious,  the  ordinary  in  character 
and  situation  was  what  he  must  at  all  costs  avoid.  How 
ever  crude  the  material,  it  must  be  given  some  particular 
turn,  some  special  refinement ;  it  must  be  viewed  in  some 
important  but  neglected  aspect.  In  the  light  of  his  later 
work,  one  may  indeed  detect  in  the  earliest  some  reach 
ing  out  for  this  kind  of  subject.  But  never  does  the 
young  author  wholly  succeed  in  avoiding  the  effect  of  the 
ordinary.  His  experience  of  life  is  too  limited,  his  obser 
vation  too  little  cultivated,  his  imagination  too  timid  and 
unresourceful.  His  subjects  are  largely  young  people, 
their  tentative  and  generic  loves.  Of  the  complexities 
of  the  social  order,  of  the  manifold  shapes  assumed  by 
character  in  its  adaptation  to  circumstance,  of  the  ingen- 


Obscure  Beginnings  181 

ious  shifts  by  which  thwarted  men  and  women  endeavor 
to  give  their  lives  some  special  distinction,  the  youthful 
James  has  little  knowledge.  And  by  the  same  token  he  has 
little  acquaintance  with  the  artful  tricks  of  speech  by 
which  clever  people  display  and  conceal  their  feelings,  and 
with  the  help  of  which  they  grope  their  way  to  an  under 
standing  of  where  they  are.  He  has  not  learned,  for 
himself,  that  lightness  of  touch  which  invariably  charac 
terizes  his  later  style.  He  has  not  learned  to  convey  his 
meaning  by  allusive  indirection.  It  goes  without  saying 
that  his  earliest  style  has  no  hint  of  that  beautiful  tex 
ture,  that  suffused  glow  and  shimmer  of  figurative  lan 
guage,  which  makes  so  much  of  the  charm  of  books  like 
"The  Princess  Casamassima"  and  "The  Wings  of  the 
Dove."  He  has  a  copious  vocabulary,  the  young  author ; 
but  of  the  suppleness,  the  grasp  of  the  minor  relationships 
of  ideas,  the  faculties  for  intimation  and  qualification 
of  the  later  James,  scarcely  a  hint.  The  dialogue  in 
particular  impresses  one  as  bald  and  plain  to  the  point 
of  boredom.  All  this  I  must  ask  the  reader  to  take  for 
granted,  especially  in  reference  to  the  realistic  tales,  of 
which  thus  far  I  have  been  speaking  more  particularly. 

It  is  all  equally  true  of  his  first  little  experiment  in 
the  longer  form  of  story,  "Watch  and  Ward,"  which 
appeared  in  the  "Atlantic"  in  1871,  and  was  later  accorded 
the  dignity  of  a  volume  to  itself.  In  this  book  we  have 
to  do  with  most  ordinary  people  involved  in  a  most  ordi 
nary  plot.  It  is  about  a  nice  young  man  of  means  who, 
having  adopted  an  orphan  girl,  proceeds  to  fall  in  love 
with  his  ward  while  she  is  yet  very  young.  There  can  be 
little  question  that  in  the  end  she  will  become  his  wife ; 
but  a  story  is  rigged  up  by  the  usual  expedient  of  devising 
various  obstacles  to  that  desired  consummation.  These 


182  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

obstacles  take  the  form  of  several  women  and  several 
men.  The  women  make  a  very  weak  trial  of  the  con 
stancy  of  our  hero;  the  men,  who  are  disposed  of  with 
greater  difficulty,  serve  as  steps  in  the  education  of  our 
heroine  to  the  point  where  she  can  choose  her  guardian 
with  a  full  understanding  of  his  merits.  There  are  four 
or  five  major  characters,  and  many  others  of  minor  im 
portance.  The  incidents  include  a  suicide,  a  voyage  to 
South  America,  another  to  Rome,  and  what  practically 
constitutes  the  abduction  and  forcible  confinement  of  the 
heroine;  as  well  as  several  "scenes"  of  considerable  ex 
citement  in  which  emphatic  words  are  spoken.  And  it 
is  all  disposed  of  in  eleven  short  chapters.  Something 
important  happens  in  each  chapter.  And  yet  the  effect 
is  of  matter  spread  out  thin,  since  no  scene  is  developed 
according  to  its  possibilities.  The  people  are  introduced 
to  us  in  extended  passages  of  set  description,  and  yet  we 
have  no  feeling  of  intimate  acquaintance  with  any  of 
them.  They  include  a  corrupt  and  plausible  Episcopal 
minister  of  high  fashion,  whose  more  distinguished  kin 
we  seem  to  have  met  in  the  pages  of  Thackeray  and 
Trollope ;  a  flashy  young  man  from  St.  Louis ;  a  slovenly 
and  ignorant  Peruvian  beauty;  and  several  colorless 
though  nominally  attractive  women  of  our  own  clime. 
Among  the  incidental  figures  are  several  suggestive  of 
those  tobacco-spitting  Americans  encountered  by  Martin 
Chuzzlewit  on  his  trip  to  Eden. 

Both  persons  and  places  offered  frequent  occasion  for 
testifying  to  a  realistic  faith  in  which  by  some  miracle 
Dickens  and  Balzac  might  be  reconciled.  We  read  of  a 
certain  Mr.  Franks,  that  he  "was  a  small  meagre  man, 
with  a  whitish  coloring,  weak  blue  eyes  and  thin  yellow 
whiskers,  suffering  apparently  from  some  nervous 
malady.  He  nodded,  he  stumbled,  he  jerked  his  arms 


Obscure  Beginnings  183 

and  legs  about  with  pitiful  comicality.  He  had  a  large 
protuberant  forehead,  such  a  forehead  as  would  have 
done  honor  to  a  Goethe  or  a  Newton."11  The  personality 
of  Mr.  Franks,  we  may  note  in  passing,  has  but  the 
remotest  bearing  on  the  story,  and  he  makes  his  appear 
ance  only  in  this  one  brief  scene. 

The  dialogue  is  crude  and  bald  without  intending  to  be 
so.  The  following  is  the  style  of  the  accomplished 
clerical  Lothario  on  being  reproached  by  a  lady  with  his 
double-dealing.  He  "remained  silent  a  moment,  shaking 
a  scornful  finger  at  her.  'For  shame,  Madam/  he  cried. 
'That's  in  shocking  taste!  You  might  have  been  gener 
ous  ;  it  seems  to  me  I  deserve  it.'  And  with  a  summary 
bow  he  departed."12  Imagine  a  character  of  Henry 
James  shaking  a  scornful  finger  and  crying  "For  shame, 
Madam" !  Hardly  more  recognizable  is  the  style  when 
the  young  author  introduces  some  original  reflection  of 
his  own.  "So  she  played  Weber  for  more  than  an  hour," 
runs  the  account  in  one  moving  passage;  "and  I  doubt 
whether,  among  the  singers  who  filled  the  theatre  with 
their  melody,  the  master  found  that  evening  a  truer 
interpreter  than  the  young  girl  playing  in  the  lamplit 
parlor  to  the  man  she  loved."13  In  1871  prevailed,  we 
remember,  the  undegenerate  style  of  our  grandmothers. 

But  this  is  like  watching  someone  in  the  act  of  dress 
ing.  We  have  stayed  our  glance  too  long  on  a  work 
which  the  author  would  doubtless  have  blotted  out  of 
existence  had  that  been  possible. 

A  considerable  advance  in  expertness  is  to  be  observed 
in  the  romantic  tales.  This  may  be  to  some  extent  the 
result  of  their  later  date.  It  was  charily  and  with  seem- 

"  P.  178.         "  P.  156.         is  P.  144. 


184  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

ing  reluctance  that  James  ventured  upon  this  dubious 
ground,  as  if  he  felt  it  not  to  be  his  realm,  and  was  yet 
unwilling  to  leave  any  possibility  untried.  And  there 
were  but  two  of  this  miscellaneous  group  of  tales  written 
before  1875  that  he  saw  fit  to  revive  in  later  years.  The 
reasons  are  not  generally  far  to  seek. 

He  first  tried  his  hand  at  the  supernatural,  and  most 
amateurish  is  his  handling  of  this  weird  element.  Of 
"The  Romance  of  Certain  Old  Clothes"14  the  inspiration 
is  clearly  Hawthorne.  The  occurrences  are  referred 
to  eighteenth-century  New  England.  But  the  strictly 
romantic  element  is  confined  to  the  last  paragraph,  where 
the  red  marks  of  the  ghostly  fingers  are  not  more  sur 
prising  than  they  are  out  of  place  artistically.  The  story 
was  written  for  the  sake  of  the  conclusion,  but  the  con 
clusion  gives  the  impression  of  not  belonging  to  the  story. 
"DeGrey:  A  Romance,"15  while  it  devotes  itself  more  at 
length  to  the  creation  of  effects  of  mystery  and  terror, 
shows  yet  an  uncertainty  on  the  author's  part  as  to 
whether  these  thrills  are  to  be  his  main  concern,  or 
whether  it  is  not  to  be  rather  the  psychological  processes 
of  the  characters.  As  for  the  thrills  themselves,  they  are 
created  rather  cheaply  with  a  plot  involving  a  family 
in  which  invariably  the  mistress  or  wife  comes  to  a  quick 
and  terrible  end.  And  the  author  makes  use  also  of  the 
familiar  devices  of  melodramatic  phrase  and  circum 
stance.  There  must  needs  be  a  Catholic  priest  with  a 
mysterious  past  to  reveal  the  fearful  secrets  of  the  family 
to  the  heroine  in  the  midst  of  a  thunderstorm.  "The 
room  grew  dark  with  the  gathering  storm,  and  the  distant 
thunder  muttered."  Feeling  and  expression  are  always 
in  the  superlative  degree.  The  hero  "cries  out  in  an 

14  "The  Atlantic,"  February,  1868. 

15  "The  Atlantic,"  July,  1868. 


Obscure  Beginnings 


ecstasy  of  belief  and  joy."  The  heroine  "turns  deadly 
pale."  People  rush  madly,  precipitately — and  more  than 
once.  Piercing  shrieks  resound  through  the  house.  A 
face  "gleams  through  the  darkness  like  a  mask  of 
reproach,  white  with  the  phosphorescent  dews  of  death." 

Neither  of  these  tales  of  the  uncanny,  nor  for  that 
matter  the  much  better  story  of  "The  Ghostly  Rental," 
dating  from  as  late  as  1876,16  bears  the  faintest  resem 
blance  to  those  remarkable  tales  of  the  later  time,  "The 
Friends  of  the  Friends,"  "The  Real  Right  Thing,"  and 
"The  Turn  of  the  Screw."  The  last-named  is  almost 
unparalleled  in  its  effects  of  supernatural  terror  secured 
without  any  resort  to  the  devices  of  twilight  fears  and 
bugbear  phrases.  But  true  to  the  genius  of  Henry  James, 
it  is  a  moral  terror  as  well  as  a  thrill  of  the  nerves. 

And  now  we  take  a  long  step  forward.  We  turn  our 
backs  on  the  American  scene.  And  the  romantic  glamour 
of  Europe  must  count  for  something  in  all  the  rest 
of  the  experiments.  Some  of  them,  however,  owe  their 
romantic  character  not  so  much  to  that  circumstance 
as  to  the  remarkable  part  played  in  the  action  by  co 
incidence  or  parallelism  of  incidents.  The  author  was 
now  trying  his  hand  at  curious  plot-patterns.  A  young 
man  carefully  guarded  by  his  widowed  father  and 
brought  up  in  America  to  be  a  gentleman  of  rare  quality ; 
a  girl  similarly  tended  by  her  father  in  a  walled  garden 
of  Smyrna.  They  are  engaged  to  each  other  by  their 
fathers  without  ever  having  met.  Each  rebels  against 
this  arbitrary  disposition  of  hand  and  heart,  and  in  the 
end  they  find  each  other  quite  to  one  another's  taste. 
Such  is  a  part  of  the  plot  of  "Eugene  Pickering,"  dating 
from  1874.17  Equally  remarkable  for  correspondences 

16  "Scribner's,"  September. 

17  'The  Atlantic,"  October-November. 


186  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

of  incident  are  certain  tales  published  within  the  next 
few  years. 

A  special  essay  in  romance  is  "Gabrielle  de  Ber- 
gerac,"18  so  far  as  I  know  the  single  case  (apart  from 
"The  Romance  of  Certain  Old  Clothes")  in  which  James 
goes  back  of  1800  for  the  date  of  his  story.  It  is  a 
deliberate  study  in  historical  romance,  and  not  without 
its  charm — though  all  the  materials  are  unique  in  the 
work  of  James.  It  is  a  kind  of  pastiche  of  Scarron, 
Watteau,  Rousseau,  Walter  Scott,  with  a  spice  of  Haw 
thorne  and  other  American  writers.  The  influence  of 
Hawthorne  is  particularly  noticeable  in  "Benvolio,"19  a 
story  absolutely  lacking  in  dialogue,  in  which  most  of  the 
characters  are  known  by  function  (Countess,  Professor) 
instead  of  name,  and  in  which  the  scene  is  not  more 
localized  than  is  implied  by  the  presence  of  theatres  and 
castles.  This  tale  is  a  product  of  the  same  year  as 
"Roderick  Hudson." 

Meantime  James's  experiments  in  assorted  romance 
had  culminated  in  a  set  of  tales  more  interesting  than 
any  I  have  discussed,  and  heralding  his  arrival  at  the 
state  of  mastership.  The  tales  of  this  group  derive  their 
interest  from  the  spirit  of  place, — from  the  glamour  of 
foreign  scenes  and  crowding  old-world  associations.  Of 
these  he  judged  worthy  of  inclusion  in  his  collected 
works  "A  Passionate  Pilgrim"  and  "The  Madonna  of 
the  Future."20  The  first  presents  through  the  vision  of  a 
half -crazed  American  the  heady  charm  of  the  English 
country,  of  English  houses,  English  colleges,  English 

18  "The  Atlantic,"  July-September,  1869. 
«  "The  Galaxy,"  August,  1875. 

20  Both  first  published  in  "The  Atlantic,"  the  one  in  March- 
April,  1871,  the  other  in  March,  1873. 


Obscure  Beginnings 


inns  and  English  ghosts.  It  is  written  in  the  youthful 
glow  of  first  discovery,  and  cannot  fail  to  captivate  any 
reader  who  is  still  capable  of  enthusiasm.  It  has  a  good, 
if  somewhat  fantastic,  old-fashioned  story.  "The  Ma 
donna  of  the  Future"  has  less  story,  but  is  an  agreeable 
evocation  of  the  atmosphere  of  Florence  and  the  passion 
of  the  artist.  Three  less  favored  studies  in  European 
glamour  are  "The  Sweetheart  of  Monsieur  Briseux"  (an 
episode  in  the  lives  of  an  American  woman  and  a  French 
painter),  "The  Last  of  the  Valerii"  and  "Travelling 
Companions."21 

It  is  sufficiently  obvious  why  the  author  has  repudiated 
the  very  early  "Travelling  Companions," — the  first  of 
his  fictions  laid  in  Europe  excepting  the  historical 
romance  of  "Gabrielle  de  Bergerac."  It  is  the  story  of 
a  young  American  couple  who  were  drawn  together  by 
the  sentiments  they  shared  for  Italy.  The  text  is  made 
up  of  alternating  blocks  of  narrative  proper  and  effusions 
on  art  and  history.  This  work  of  fiction,  which  appeared 
in  the  "Atlantic"  in  the  year  1870,  might  have  served 
for  a  complete  travelers'  guide  to  Milan,  Venice  and 
Rome.  The  readers  were  given  full  directions  as  to  what 
they  should  see  and  feel  in  Milan  cathedral,  upon  the 
Lido,  in  the  Borghese  Gallery  and  at  the  Villa  Pamfili- 
Doria.  And  they  were  further  elevated  with  the  thought 
of  all  the  personal  experiences  which  might  be  associated 
with  these  sublime  artistic  impressions.  The  heroine 
proves  herself  "worthy  to  know  Venice,"  as  the  hero  puts 
it,  by  breaking  into  sobs  over  Tintoretto's  Crucifixion. 
The  author  shows  himself  a  man  of  feeling  and  taste  in 
his  own  right  in  many  purple  patches  of  fervid  sentiment 

21  First  appearing,  respectively,  in  "The  Galaxy,"  June,  1873, 
and  "The  Atlantic/'  January,  1874,  and  November-December, 
1870. 


i88  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

and  description.  I  will  underline  a  few  of  the  emphatic 
words  in  the  description  of  Leonardo's  Last  Supper; 
though  that  would  scarce  be  necessary  to  make  the  reader 
feel  the  exalted  tone  of  the  young  enthusiast : 

The  most  strictly  impressive  picture  in  Italy  is  incon- 
testably  the  Last  Supper  of  Leonardo  at  Milan  ...  its 
immense  solemnity.  .  .  .  The  mind  finds  a  rare  delight 
in  filling  each  of  its  vacant  spaces,  effacing  its  rank  defile 
ment,  and  repairing,  as  far  as  possible,  its  sad  disorder. 
.  .  .  An  unquenchable  elegance  lingers  in  those  vague 
outlines  and  incurable  scars;  enough  remains  to  place 
you  in  sympathy  with  the  unfathomable  wisdom  of  the 
painter. 

The  following  description  of  the  Venetian  basilica  is,  I 
believe,  unique  in  the  work  of  Henry  James  for  its 
orotund  arrangements  of  cadenced  repetition.  He  must 
have  been  reading  Ruskin. 

It  was  that  enchanting  Venetian  hour  when  the  ocean- 
touching  sun  sits  melting  to  death,  and  the  whole  still  air 
seems  to  glow  with  the  soft  effusion  of  his  golden  sub 
stance.  Within  the  church,  the  deep  brown  shadow- 
masses,  the  heavy  thick-tinted  air,  the  gorgeous  compos 
ite  darkness,  reigned  in  richer,  quainter,  more  fantastic 
f*:oom  than  my  feeble  pen  can  reproduce  the  likeness  of. 
rom  those  rude  concavities  of  dome  and  semi-dome, 
where  the  multitudinous  facets  of  pictorial  mosaic  shim 
mer  and  twinkle  in  their  own  dull  brightness ;  from  the 
vast  antiquity  of  innumerable  marbles,  incrusting  the 
walls  in  roughly-mated  slabs,  cracked  and  polished  and 
triple-tinted  with  eternal  service;  from  the  wavy  carpet 
of  compacted  stone,  where  a  thousand  once-bright  frag 
ments  glimmer  through  the  long  attrition  of  idle  feet 
and  devoted  knees;  from  sombre  gold  and  mellow  ala 
baster,  from  porphyry  and  malachite,  from  long  dead 
crystal  and  the  sparkle  of  undying  lamps, — there  proceeds 
a  dense  rich  atmosphere  of  splendor  and  sanctity  which 
transports  the  half  stupefied  traveller  to  the  age  of  a 


Obscure  Beginnings 


simpler  and  more  awful  faith.  I  wandered  for  half  an 
hour  beneath  those  reverted  cups  of  scintillating  dark 
ness,  stumbling  on  the  great  stony  swells  of  the  pavement 
as  I  gazed  upward  at  the  long  mosaic  saints  who  curve 
gigantically  with  the  curves  of  dome  and  ceiling.  I  had 
left  Europe  ;  I  was  in  the  East.  An  overwhelming  sense 
of  the  sadness  of  man's  spiritual  history  took  possession 
of  my  heart.  The  clustering  picturesque  shadows  about 
me  seemed  to  represent  the  darkness  of  a  past  from 
which  he  had  slowly  and  painfully  struggled."  Etc.,  etc. 

How  gratifying  this  passage  must  have  been  to  the  souls 
of  those  starved  New  England  spinsters  set  before  us 
in  some  of  the  later  stories  of  James  !  How  fondly  they 
must  have  read  it  out  to  one  another  ! 

Of  all  this  group  of  tales,  the  most  expert,  the  most 
consistent  in  tone,  the  most  successful  in  its  evocation  of 
the  spirit  of  the  past  and  the  brooding  loveliness  of  the 
present  in  the  foreign  scene  is  "The  Last  of  the  Valerii." 
To  my  taste  it  is  a  better  story  than  either  of  those  picked 
by  Mr.  James  for  preservation.  The  action  is  laid  in 
Rome,  and  almost  exclusively  in  the  garden  of  an  ancient 
villa,  with  its  ilex  walks,  its  lingering  golden  afternoon 
light,  its  picturesque  decay  and  its  buried  statuary.  Per 
haps  it  was  judged  by  the  author  too  fantastic  in  its 
donnee.  For  it  has  to  do  with  a  Roman  nobleman  of  our 
days  capable  of  worshipping  and  doing  sacrifice  to  a 
Grecian  goddess.  But  this  is  scarcely  less  credible  than 
the  story  of  an  American  cousin  so  highly  distinguished 
by  the  visitation  of  an  English  ghost.  Perhaps  the  deter 
mining  fact  for  James  was  a  sense  of  having  opened  for 
us  the  intimate  consciousness  of  the  passionate  Pilgrim 
as  he  could  not  do  that  of  the  less  self-conscious  Roman. 
Perhaps  he  wished  to  avoid  being  accused  of  following 
too  closely  in  the  footsteps  of  Hawthorne.  Or  did  he 
fear  the  charge  of  plagiarism  in  view  of  the  similarity 


ipo  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

of  his  theme  to  that  of  Prosper  Merimee  in  his  "Venus 
d'llle"  ?  Whatever  his  motive,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the 
public  will  accept  his  verdict  in  this  case  and  leave  to 
oblivion  so  charming  an  introduction  to  "Roderick  Hud 
son"  and  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady." 

And  thus  Henry  James  had  found  himself,  and  had 
emerged  from  the  period  of  helpless  groping.  It  is  true 
these  tales  may  be  classed  unhesitatingly  as  romance, 
while  the  best  work  of  James  would  probably  be  labelled 
realism.  "The  Last  of  the  Valerii"  dates  from  1874,  and 
of  the  same  year  is  "Madame  de  Mauves," — a  story  of 
domestic  relations,  of  spiritual  adjustments,  of  the  hard 
conditions  and  restraints  of  the  common  lot.  In  the  fol 
lowing  year  comes  "Roderick  Hudson,"  a  study  in  social 
contrasts;  and  so  begins  the  long  series  of  psychological 
novels  and  briefer  sketches  of  social  action  and  reaction. 
But  it  would  be  perversity  to  ignore  the  strain  of  fine 
romance  that  runs  through  the  whole  series.  Mr.  James 
himself  has  acknowledged  the  obviously  romantic  back 
ground  of  "The  American."  And  everyone  knows  how 
large  a  part  is  played  in  all  his  great  stories  by  the  gla 
mour  of  the  old  world, — by  its  Weltansicht,  its  clustering 
associations,  and  its  sheer  physical  charm.  In  "The 
American"  and  "The  Ambassadors,"  is  not  Paris  a  prime 
source  of  interest?  In  "Roderick  Hudson,"  is  it  not  the 
Rome  of  "The  Marble  Faun";  in  "The  Princess  Casa- 
massima"  and  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove,"  the  London  of 
Dickens  and  Whistler;  in  "The  Aspern  Papers"  and 
"The  Wings  of  the  Dove"  again,  is  it  not  the  Venice  of 
Byron  and  Ruskin  ?  There  was  still  in  1874  much  to  learn 
in  the  matter  of  technique  and  of  life.  But  these  things 
would  follow  soon  enough  once  the  author  had  discovered 
his  "Europe."  "Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you" ! 


II 

EARLY  PRIME 

The  first  main  period  of  production,  covering  a  decade 
and  a  half,  was  signalized  by  five  novels  of  great  power 
and  charm.  Through  these  years  James  was  feeling  his 
way  towards  that  method  which  was  to  characterize  all 
the  work  of  the  later  period.  It  will  be  interesting  to 
trace  his  progress  through  the  series,  not  wholly  ignoring 
the  individual  quality  of  the  novels  in  our  primary  con 
cern  with  evolving  technique. 

(a)     Roderick  Hudson 

The  first  one  of  James's  fictions  of  really  monumental 
proportions  was  "Roderick  Hudson,"  produced  in  1875. 
This  strong  and  engaging  story  is  marked  in  a  dozen 
ways  as  the  production  of  his  youth.  Some  of  these  I 
have  already  dwelt  upon :  notably  the  variegated  pictur- 
esqueness  of  the  characters,  and  the  use  of  the  dialogue 
for  the  display  of  their  humors  rather  than  for  the 
unfolding  of  the  idea.  Equally  remarkable  is  the  gener 
osity  and  promptitude  with  which  the  author  presents 
us  with  our  information.  Before  he  has  given  us  a  dozen 
pages  of  the  story  proper,  he  takes  nearly  that  number 
to  tell  us  all  he  knows  of  Rowland  Mallet  and  his  ante 
cedents — all  he  knows,  and  much  more  than  we  care  to 
know  at  the  time  or  shall  ever  have  a  need  for  knowing. 
When  we  have  arrived  at  Rome  and  are  present  at  Row 
land's  studio  tea,  we  receive  an  extended  conscientious 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


account  of  the  interesting  artistic  people  we  are  to  meet 
there.  Each  one  has  a  paragraph  to  himself,  and  as 
some  of  them  are  of  a  certain  quaintness  of  character, 
we  have  the  feeling  that  we  may  be  reading  a  paper 
by  some  new  Dick  Steele  giving  account  of  a  new  Spec 
tator  club.  There  is  for  example  Sam  Singleton,  whose 
portrait  I  shall  venture  to  introduce  entire. 

Rowland's  second  guest  was  also  an  artist,  but  of  a  very 
different  type.  His  friends  called  him  Sam  Singleton; 
he  was  an  American,  and  he  had  been  in  Rome  a  couple 
of  years.  He  painted  small  landscapes,  chiefly  in  water- 
colour  ;  Rowland  had  seen  one  of  them  in  a  shop  window, 
had  liked  it  extremely  and,  ascertaining  his  address,  had 
gone  to  see  him  and  found  him  established  in  a  very 
humble  studio  near  the  Piazza  Barberini,  where  appar 
ently  fame  and  fortune  had  not  yet  come  his  way.  Row 
land,  treating  him  as  a  discovery,  had  bought  several  of 
his  pictures;  Singleton  made  few  speeches,  but  was 
intensely  grateful.  Rowland  heard  afterwards  that  when 
he  first  came  to  Rome  he  painted  worthless  daubs  and 
gave  no  promise  of  talent.  Improvement  had  come,  how 
ever,  hand  in  hand  with  patient  industry,  and  his  talent, 
though  of  a  slender  and  delicate  order,  was  now  incon 
testable.  It  was  as  yet  but  scantily  recognised  and  he  had 
hard  work  to  hold  out.  Rowland  hung  his  little  water- 
colours  on  the  library  wall,  and  found  that  as  he  lived 
with  them  he  grew  very  fond  of  them.  Singleton,  short 
and  spare,  was  made  as  if  for  sitting  on  very  small 
camp-stools  and  eating  the  tiniest  luncheons.  He  had  a 
transparent  brown  regard,  a  perpetual  smile,  an  extraor 
dinary  expression  of  modesty  and  patience.  He  listened 
much  more  willingly  than  he  talked,  with  a  little  fixed 
grateful  grin;  he  blushed  when  he  spoke,  and  always 
offered  his  ideas  as  if  he  were  handing  you  useful  objects 
of  your  own  that  you  had  unconsciously  dropped  ;  so  that 
his  credit  could  be  at  most  for  honesty.  He  was  so 
perfect  an  example  of  the  little  noiseless  devoted  worker 
whom  chance,  in  the  person  of  a  moneyed  patron,  has 


Early  Prime  193 


never  taken  by  the  hand,  that  Rowland  would  have  liked 
to  befriend  him  by  stealth.1 

This  is  all,  it  will  be  observed,  a  perfectly  general 
account  of  the  little  painter;  it  is  given  en  bloc  on  the 
authority  of  the  novelist.  The  later  method  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  description  of  Little  Bilham,  a  character 
in  "The  Ambassadors"  somewhat  akin  to  Sam  Singleton. 
We  have  our  introduction  to  Little  Bilham  in  the  account 
given  by  Strether  to  Way  marsh  of  his  visit  to  Chad's 
apartments.  Strether  did  not  go  there  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  any  "little  artist-man,"  but  to  learn  some 
thing  of  the  situation  of  Chad.  He  has  now  the  knowl 
edge  that  he  doesn't  know  anything.  So  much  he  learned 
from  Little  Bilham. 

"That's  what  I  found  out  from  the  young  man." 

"But  I  thought  you  said  you  found  out  nothing." 

"Nothing  but  that — that  I  don't  know  anything." 

"And  what  good  does  that  do  you  ?" 

"It's  just,"  said  Strether,  "what  I've  come  to  you  to 
help  me  to  discover.  I  mean  anything  about  anything 
over  here.  I  felt  that,  up  there.  It  regularly  rose  before 
me  in  its  might.  The  young  man  moreover — Chad's 
friend — as  good  as  told  me  so." 

"As  good  as  told  you  you  know  nothing  about  any 
thing?"  Waymarsh  appeared  to  look  at  some  one  who 
might  have  as  good  as  told  him.  "How  old  is  he  ?" 

"Well,  I  guess  not  thirty." 

"Yet  you  had  to  take  that  from  him?" 

"Oh,  I  took  a  good  deal  more — since,  as  I  tell  you, 
I  took  an  invitation  to  dejeuner." 

"And  are  you  going  to  that  unholy  meal  ?" 

"If  you'll  come  with  me.  He  wants  you  too,  you  know. 
I  told  him  about  you.  He  gave  me  his  card,"  Strether 
pursued,  "and  his  name's  rather  funny.  It's  John 

*  Vol.  I,  pp.  108-109. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


Little  Bilham,  and  he  says  his  two  surnames  are,  on 
account  of  his  being  small,  inevitably  used  together." 

"Well,"  Waymarsh  asked  with  due  detachment  from 
these  details,  "what's  he  doing  up  there?" 

"His  account  of  himself  is  that  he's  'only  a  little  artist- 
man.'  That  seemed  to  me  perfectly  to  describe  him. 
But  he's  yet  in  the  phase  of  study;  this,  you  know,  is 
the  great  art-school  —  to  pass  a  certain  number  of  years 
in  which  he  came  over.  And  he's  a  great  friend  of 
Chad's,  and  occupying  Chad's  rooms  just  now  because 
they're  so  pleasant.  He's  very  pleasant  and  curious  too," 
Strether  added  —  "though  he's  not  from  Boston." 

Waymarsh  looked  already  rather  sick  of  him.  "Where 
is  he  from?" 

Strether  thought.  "I  don't  know  that,  either.  But  he's 
'notoriously,'  as  he  put  it  himself,  not  from  Boston." 

"Well,"  Waymarsh  moralised  from  dry  depths,  "every 
one  can't  notoriously  be  from  Boston.  Why,"  he  con 
tinued,  "is  he  curious?" 

"Perhaps  just  for  that  —  for  one  thing!  But  really," 
Strether  added,  "for  everything.  When  you  meet  him 
you'll  see." 

"Oh,  I  don't  want  to  meet  him,"  Waymarsh  impa 
tiently  growled.  "Why  don't  he  go  home  ?" 

Strether  hesitated.  "Well,  because  he  likes  it  over 
here." 

This  appeared  in  particular  more  than  Waymarsh  could 
bear.  "He  ought  then  to  be  ashamed  of  himself,  and, 
as  you  admit  you  think  so  too,  why  drag  him  in  ?"  2 

But  the  last  question  carries  them  beyond  Little  Bilham. 
We  may  have,  as  the  result  of  this  dialogue,  a  small 
provision  of  fact  about  him.  But  we  have,  what  is  more 
to  the  purpose,  a  most  vivid  impression  of  what  he  stands 
for  ;  and,  what  is  still  more  to  the  purpose,  we  have  the 
states  of  mind  of  Strether  and  Waymarsh  in  regard  to 
this  curious  and  significant  person. 

2  Vol.  XXI,  pp.  106-108. 


Early  Prime  195 


Sometimes  in  "Roderick  Hudson"  James  has  one  of  his 
characters  relate  the  facts  to  another  in  conversation. 
Thus  Madame  Grandoni  gives  Rowland  an  account  of 
Christina  Light  and  her  mother.  But  she  does  it  in 
one  (very  long)  breath.  It  takes  an  almost  uninterrupted 
speech  of  five  pages.  James  seems  a  bit  conscious  himself 
of  the  formidableness  of  such  a  block  of  information, 
and  he  makes  a  kind  of  acknowledgment  of  guilt.  "Your 
report's  as  solid,"  Rowland  said  to  Madame  Grandoni, 
thanking  her,  "as  if  it  had  been  drawn  up  for  the 
Academy  of  Sciences."3 

It  is  in  the  same  deliberate  fashion  that  the  author 
describes  the  dwellings  of  his  characters  and  the  scenes 
they  visit.  And  the  narrative  itself  is  largely  conducted 
by  passages  of  generalization.  Dialogues  are  summa 
rized  in  crowded  paragraphs  of  exposition.  The  author 
feels  responsible  for  every  moment  of  his  characters' 
time.  But  when  he  gives  us  an  account  of  their  occupa 
tions,  it  is  at  long  range  and  in  shorthand,  as  one  writes 
up  one's  diary  for  the  past  month  without  attention  to 
the  particular  dates.  The  young  author  is  very  bold  in 
the  summary  account  of  character  and  of  states  of  mind. 
And  not  content  with  giving  the  general  facts  about  such 
and  such  a  person,  he  must  needs  soar  still  higher  to  the 
facts  of  human  nature  at  large.  "Very  odd,  you  may  say, 
that  at  this  time  of  day  Rowland  should  still  be  brooding 
over  a  girl  of  no  brilliancy,  of  whom  he  had  had  a  bare 
glimpse  two  years  before;  very  odd  that  an  impression 
should  have  fixed  itself  so  sharply  under  so  few  applica 
tions  of  the  die.  It  is  of  the  very  nature  of  such  impres 
sions,  however,  to  show  a  total  never  represented  by  the 
mere  sum  of  their  constituent  parts."4  Thus  he  calls 

»  Vol.  I,  p.  166. 
*  Id.,  p.  313. 


ip6  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

our  attention  to  the  fineness  and  the  high  comprehensive 
ness  of  his  psychology, — merits  which  the  maturer  artist 
would  have  left  us  to  find  out  for  ourselves. 

So  much  for  technique  in  the  narrower  sense.  In  the 
larger  view  the  novel  is  perhaps  equally  far  from  the 
distinctive  manner  of  James.  It  has  an  idea,  and  a  very 
interesting  one:  that,  to  put  it  briefly,  of  genius  and  its 
frequent  tendency  to  claim  exemptions  not  accorded  to 
ordinary  humanity:  genius  and  its  sometimes  appalling 
"nostalgie  de  la  boue"  This  idea  is  scarcely  however 
conceived  pictorially.  The  story  is  just  the  chronological 
account  of  the  degeneration  of  a  genius  thus  claiming 
unholy  license.  And  we  are  never  really  made  to  under 
stand  this  process.  There  is  something  too  mysterious 
about  the  ruin  that  comes  upon  Roderick;  we  are  never 
rightly  made  acquainted  with  the  demon  who  rides  him 
to  destruction. 

A  main  reason  for  the  failure  of  the  book  to  make  its 
point  is  the  unhappy  choice  of  an  interpreter.  It  may 
be  that  Rowland  Mallet  regards  himself  as  the  person 
in  whom  we  are  most  interested.  But  in  that  case  he  is 
quite  mistaken.  He  is  an  estimable  gentleman,  with 
whom  we  sympathize,  and  whom  we  should  like  to  meet 
in  the  flesh — he  is  indeed  an  immature  forerunner  of 
Lambert  Strether — but  he  cannot  divert  our  attention 
from  his  more  vivid  and  naughty  comrade.  And  we 
naturally  resent  being  cheated  of  the  experience  of 
Roderick  by  having  it  shown  us  through  the  judicial 
optics  of  Rowland. 

But  in  spite  of  all,  the  book  is  unmistakably  the  work 
of  Henry  James.  I  do  not  wish  to  burden  the  reader 
with  a  review  of  the  many  ways  in  which  it  shows  his 
well-known  character.  I  must  content  myself  with  not 
ing  the  strong,  distinctive  flavor  of  James  in  certain  pas- 


Early  Prime 


sages  between  Rowland  and  Christina.  Christina  is 
really  the  best  thing  in  this  book.  She  is  not  altogether 
unworthy  of  herself  as  she  appears  in  "The  Princess 
Casamassima."  She  is  to  Rowland  something  of  the 
enigma  she  became  later  for  Hyacinth  Robinson.  "He 
felt  it  a  rare  and  expensive  privilege  to  watch  her.  .  .  . 
The  background  of  her  nature  had  a  sort  of  landscape 
largeness  and  was  mysterious  withal,  emitting  strange, 
fantastic  gleams  and  flashes.  Waiting  for  these  was 
better  sport  than  some  kinds  of  fishing.  Moreover  it  was 
not  a  disadvantage  to  talk  with  a  girl  who  forced  one  to 
make  sure  of  the  sufficiency  of  one's  wit."5  Christina 
had  the  beauty  of  having  a  "system" ;  and  no  little  part 
of  their  dialogue  (as  in  the  fourteenth  chapter)  reflects 
Rowland's  attempt  to  get  a  glimpse  of  this  system.  There 
is  one  interchange  in  particular,  in  the  twentieth  chapter, 
which  might  almost  have  occurred  in  "The  Awkward 
Age"  or  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  considering  the  interest 
shown  by  Christina  in  a  fine  point  of  Rowland's  and  the 
fine  point  which  she  produces  herself  as  an  outcome  of 
their  sharp  fencing  match.  Rowland  has  challenged  her 
intentions  in  regard  to  Roderick  and  the  Prince,  now  that 
she  has  made  the  acquaintance  of  Roderick's  Mary. 

"Would  you  have  done  this  [throw  over  the  Prince] 
if  you  had  not  seen  a  certain  person?" 

"What  person?" 

"The  young  lady  you  so  much  admire." 

She  looked  at  him  with  quickened  attention;  then 
suddenly,  "This  is  really  interesting,"  she  exclaimed. 
"Let  us  see  what's  in  it."  And  she  flung  herself  into  a 
chair  and  pointed  to  another. 

"You  don't  answer  my  question,"  Rowland  said. 

"You've  no  right  that  I  know  of  to  ask  it.     But  it's 

« Vol.  I,  p.  277. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


very  intelligent  —  it  puts  such  a  lot  into  it.  Into  my 
having  seen  her,  I  mean."  She  paused  a  moment;  then 
with  her  eyes  on  him,  "She  helped  me  certainly,"  she 
went  on. 

"Provoked  you,  you  mean,  to  hurt  her  —  through 
Roderick  ?" 

For  a  moment  she  deeply  coloured,  and  he  had  really 
not  intended  to  force  the  tears  to  her  eyes.  A  cold  clear 
ness,  however,  quickly  forced  them  back.  "I  see  your 
train  of  reasoning,  but  it's  really  all  wrong.  I  meant  no 
harm  whatever  to  Miss  Garland;  I  should  be  extremely 
sorry  to  cause  her  any  distress.  Tell  me  that,  since  I 
assure  you  of  that,  you  believe  it." 

"How  am  I  to  tell  you,"  he  asked  in  a  moment,  "that 
I  don't?" 

"And  yet  your  idea  of  an  inward  connexion  between 
our  meeting  and  what  has  happened  since  corresponds 
to  something  that  has  been,  for  me,  an  inward  reality.  I 
took  into  my  head,  as  I  told  you,"  Christina  continued, 
"to  be  greatly  struck  with  Miss  Garland  (since  that's 
her  sweet  name!)  and  I  frankly  confess  that  I  was 
tormented,  that  I  was  moved  to  envy,  call  it,  if  you  like, 
to  jealousy,  by  something  I  found  in  her.  There  came 
to  me  there  in  five  minutes  the  sense  of  her  character. 
C'est  bien  beau,  you  know,  a  character  like  that,  and  I  got 
it  full  in  the  face.  It  made  me  say  to  myself  'She  in  my 
place  would  never  marry  Gennaro  —  no,  no,  no,  never  !' 
I  couldn't  help  coming  back  to  it,  and  I  thought  of  it  so 
often  that  I  found  a  kind  of  inspiration  in  it.  I  hated  the 
idea  of  being  worse  than  she  —  of  doing  something  that 
she  wouldn't  do.  .  .  .  The  end  of  it  all  was  that  I  found 
it  impossible  not  to  tell  the  Prince  that  I  was  his  very 
humble  servant,  but  that  decidedly  I  couldn't  take  him 
for  mine." 

"Are  you  sure  it  was  only  of  Miss  Garland's  character 
that  you  were  jealous,"  Rowland  asked,  "and  not  of  her 
affection  for  her  cousin  ?" 

"Sure  is  a  good  deal  to  say.  Still,  I  think  I  may  do  so. 
There  are  two  reasons  ;  one  at  least  I  can  tell  you.  Her 


Early  Prime  199 


affection  has  not  a  shadow's  weight  with  Mr.  Hudson! 
Why  then  should  one  resent  it?" 

"And  what's  the  other  reason?" 

"Excuse  me;  that's  my  own  affair." 

Rowland  felt  himself  puzzled,  baffled,  charmed, 
inspired.  .  .  .6 

This  dialogue  is  most  characteristic.  But  apart  from 
the  question  of  the  characteristic,  many  readers  have 
declared  themselves  held  and  charmed  by  the  story  of 
"Roderick  Hudson."  However  obscure  the  process  may 
remain,  the  degeneration  of  Roderick  is  undoubtedly  an 
enthralling  spectacle,  making  its  appeal  both  to  the  moral 
sense  and  to  the  deeper  fount  of  sympathy.  Not  too  far 
below  Roderick  and  Christina  in  interest  are  Mary  Gar 
land  and  Rowland.  For  even  Rowland  is  a  more  vividly 
realized  and  a  more  attractive  character  than  most  of 
those  in  the  novels  discussed  in  the  next  chapter.  And  if 
the  characters  in  a  novel  are  real  and  interesting,  we  need 
not  resort  to  the  charm  of  setting  or  any  other  merit  to 
explain  why  the  novel  lives. 

(b)     The  American 

"The  American"  is  the  first  large  essay  of  James  in 
treatment  of  the  theme  that  was  to  occupy  so  much  of 
his  attention  all  along, — the  contrast  of  the  American  and 
the  European  cultures.  And  it  remains  to  this  day  an 
effective  piece  of  work.  The  self-made  American  with 
out  antecedents  and  traditions  brought  in  contrast  with  a 
group  of  persons  for  whom  these  are  almost  the  whole  of 
life ;  the  man  of  strong  and  unlimited  self-reliance  in 
contrast  to  men  and  women  hedged  and  thwarted  in  every 
direction  by  the  restraints  of  family  and  caste — the 

«  Vol.  I,  pp.  404-405. 


2OO  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

simple,  straightforward,  easy-going  westerner  in  his 
dealings  with  these  formal,  sophisticated,  inordinately 
polite  and  treacherous  people;  it  makes  a  story  and  a 
spectacle  of  endless  richness  and  variety.  The  idea  is 
clearly  conceived,  and  there  is  no  detail  of  the  story  that 
it  does  not  inform  and  make  relevant.  The  sub-plot  of 
Valentine  de  Bellegarde  and  Noemie  Nioche  is  obviously 
introduced  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  certain  aspects 
of  the  social  contrast  which  do  not  come  out  in  New 
man's  own  love  affair.  The  friendship  of  Valentin  and 
Christopher  is  a  delightful  case  of  the  mutual  attraction 
of  opposites.  "No  two  parties  to  an  alliance  could  have 
come  to  it  from  a  wider  separation,  but  it  was  what  each 
brought  out  of  the  queer  dim  distance  that  formed  the 
odd  attraction  for  the  other."7 

The  social  contrast  comes  out  most  strikingly,  however, 
and  certainly  to  our  greatest  amusement,  in  the  series  of 
scenes  in  which  the  blunt  and  humorous  westerner  is 
opposed  to  the  frigid  courtliness  of  the  elder  Bellegardes, 
above  all  on  those  occasions  when,  having  accepted  him 
as  a  suitor  for  the  hand  of  Claire,  they  yet  endeavor, 
largely  without  success,  to  make  him  understand  the 
enormous  condescension  in  their  friendly  treatment  of  a 
"commercial"  person.  /The  American  millionaire,  con 
scious  of  his  own  power  and  his  own  good  character,  can 
be  made  to  appreciate  but  dimly  the  social  inferiority  im 
puted  to  him.  He  does  feel  keenly,  however,  if  some 
what  obscurely,  the  quality  of  culture  displayed  in  the 
manners  of  his  French  friends.  He  feels  it  naturally 
most  of  all  in  the  style  of  the  woman  he  loves.  "She 
gave  him,  the  charming  woman,  the  sense  of  an  elaborate 
education,  of  her  having  passed  through  mysterious  cere 
monies  and  processes  of  culture,  of  her  having  been 

7  Vol.  II,  p.  139. 


Early  Prime  201 


fashioned  and  made  flexible  to  certain  deep  social  needs. 
All  this  .  .  .  made  her  seem  rare  and  precious — a  very 
expensive  article."8  Her  rank  made  of  Claire  de  Cintre 
"a  kind  of  historical  formation."  Rank  was  something 
which  heretofore  he  had  heard  attributed  only  to  military 
personages.  He  now  appreciated  the  attribution  of  rank 
to  women.  "The  designations  representing  it  in  France 
struck  him  as  ever  so  pretty  and  becoming,  with  a  prop 
erty  in  the  bearer,  this  particular  one,  that  might  match 
them  and  make  a  sense — something  fair  and  softly  bright, 
that  had  motions  of  extraordinary  lightness  and  indeed  a 
whole  new  and  unfamiliar  play  of  emphasis  and  pressure, 
a  new  way,  that  is,  of  not  insisting  and  not  even,  as  one 
might  think,  wanting  or  knowing,  yet  all  to  the  effect 
of  attracting  and  pleasing."9  But  even  the  odious  rela 
tives  of  Claire  and  the  gentry  gathered  together  by  them 
at  their  ball  share  this  quality  of  rank,  and  something 
of  the  finish  and  beauty  of  style  entailed  in  their  being 
likewise  "historical  formations."  And  we  may  say  in 
passing  that  the  American  himself  does  not  come  out  at 
all  badly  in  the  comparison.  His  manners,  while  not  the 
least  bit  historical,  have  a  freedom  and  candor,  a  large 
ness  and  natural  breeding,  which  make  you  prefer  them 
to  the  article  more  expensively  produced. 

It  is  an  effective  piece  of  work.  .  .  .  And  it  is  very 
much  in  the  early  manner.  I  will  not  dwell  on  the  super 
ficial  points  of  technique  in  which  it  resembles  "Roderick 
Hudson."  The  dialogue  is  often  very  good ;  but  not  at  all 
in  the  way  the  dialogue  is  good  in  "The  Awkward  Age." 
It  is  refreshing  to  have  the  hero  "bet  his  life  on"  some 
thing,  or  to  have  him  urge  an  amused  Parisian  to  "give" 
somebody  "one  in  the  eye."  There  are  passages  of  talk, 

s  Vol.  II,  p.  165. 
» Id.,  p.  122. 


2O2  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

however,  which  have  somewhat  lost  their  savor.  We 
cannot  help  feeling  at  times  that  Valentin  and  even  his 
sister  are  permitted  to  show  themselves  younger  and  less 
practiced  hands  than  the  author  intended.  And  we  are 
conscious  of  a  certain  perfunctory  character  in  most  of 
Newman's  exemplary  love-making. 

But  the  early  manner  is  exhibited  in  ways  more  impor 
tant  than  these.  It  resides  essentially  in  what  we  may 
call  the  greater  objectivity  of  the  work.  The  chief  con 
cern  of  the  author  seems  to  be  for  the  scenical  effective 
ness  of  what  is  said  and  done.  In  the  later  work  the 
scene  is  used  chiefly  in  order  to  objectify  the  idea.  Here 
the  idea  is  the  opportunity  for  scene.  The  characters 
express  themselves  more  violently  here,  in  word  and 
gesture.  This  emotional  emphasis  reaches  its  culmination 
in  the  chapter  in  which  Claire  announces  her  intention  of 
becoming  a  nun.  In  this  one  chapter10  we  read  that 
"Newman  gave  a  great  rap  on  the  floor  with  his  stick 
and  a  long  grim  laugh";  that  "he  struck  his  heart  and 
became  more  eloquent  than  he  knew";  that  he  "almost 
shouted" ;  "he  glared  as  if  at  her  drowning  beyond  help, 
then  he  broke  out";  "he  clasped  his  hands  and  began 
to  tremble  visibly";  "he  dropped  into  a  chair  and  sat 
looking  at  her  with  a  long  inarticulate  wail" ;  "he  sprang 
to  his  feet  in  loud  derision."  Nowhere  else  in  James, 
I  think,  is  there  such  a  lavish  use  of  irony  as  that  in 
dulged  in  by  Newman  and  the  grim  Marquise.  Their 
remarks  are  as  good  as  lines  in  a  smart  play.  And  that 
is  the  point.  These  scenes  in  which  new  world  and  old 
world  are  pitted  against  one  another  are  introduced  for 
their  theatrical  effectiveness,  like  certain  brilliant  scenes 
in  Thackeray  or  in  Dumas  pere.  Such  is  the  scene  in 
which  the  Marquis  is  obliged  to  introduce  to  all  his 

10  Chap.  xx. 


Early  Prime  203 


monde  the  "commercial"  person  who  is  going  to  marry 
his  sister.  Such  is  the  scene  in  the  Pare  Monceau  in 
which  Newman  announces  to  the  Marquis  and  the  old 
Marquise  his  possession  of  the  incriminating  paper.  It 
makes  a  fine  show,  the  bravery  with  which  his  adver 
saries,  deep-stricken  as  they  are,  bear  up  in  the  face  of 
the  world, — their  display  of  that  "very  superior  style  of 
brazen  assurance,  of  what  M.  Nioche  called  I'usage  du 
monde  and  Mrs.  Tristram  called  the  grand  manner."11 
This  is  not  incompatible  with  a  suppressed  but  terrible 
exhibition  of  passion.  Upon  one  of  Newman's  ironic 
sallies  on  this  occasion,  "the  Marquis  gave  a  hiss  that 
fairly  evoked  for  our  friend  some  vision  of  a  hunched 
back,  an  erect  tail  and  a  pair  of  shining  evil  eyes.  'I 
demand  of  you  to  step  out  of  our  path !'  "12  That  is  good 
"business,"  and  a  good  line.  But  the  best  line  of  all  is  that 
of  the  Marquis  in  the  scene  where  Newman  has  informed 
him  and  his  mother  of  Valentin's  death-bed  apology  for 
their  conduct.  He  had  apologized  for  the  conduct  of 
his  own  mother!  "For  a  moment  the  effect  of  these 
words  was  as  if  he  had  struck  a  physical  blow.  A  quick 
flush  leaped  into  the  charged  faces  before  him — it  was 
like  a  jolt  of  full  glasses,  making  them  spill  their  wine. 
Urbain  uttered  two  words  which  Newman  but  half 
heard,  but  of  which  the  aftersense  came  to  him  in  the 
reverberation  of  the  sound.  'Le  miserable!'"™ 

The  point  of  view  is  throughout  chiefly  that  of  New 
man.  But  not  the  same  use  is  made  of  this  as  would 
have  been  made  in  a  later  book.  We  see  what  Newman 
sees,  but  he  does  not  interpret  it  to  us.  The  author  inter 
prets  it,  and  he  is  sometimes  obliged — in  order  to  get 

"  P.  496. 

12  P.  489. 

13  R  431. 


204  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

Newman  into  the  picture — to  give  us  a  glimpse  or  two 
beyond  what  Newman  sees.  "We  have  noted  him  as 
observant,"  says  James  in  the  scene  when  the  Marquise  is 
forced  to  invite  Newman  to  a  ball  at  her  house ;  "yet  on 
this  occasion  he  failed  to  catch  a  thin  sharp  eyebeam,  as 
cold  as  a  flash  of  steel,  which  passed  between  Madame 
de  Bellegarde  and  the  Marquis,  and  which  we  may  pre 
sume  to  have  been  a  commentary  on  the  innocence  dis 
played  in  that  latter  clause  of  this  speech."14  That  latter 
clause  had  been  a  statement  that  "it  mattered  very  little 
whether  he  met  his  friends  at  her  house  or  his  own." 
This  showed  how  little  he  understood  of  the  ways  of 
thought  of  those  with  whom  he  was  dealing.  All  along 
he  showed  surprising  unconsciousness  of  the  pitfalls 
amid  which  he  was  walking.  All  along  he  was  very 
largely  unaware  of  the  comedy  in  which  he  was  playing 
his  part.  It  was  in  vain,  for  example,  that  Valentin  tried 
to  make  him  understand  what  was  involved  in  the  con 
descension  of  Urbain  and  his  mother.  And  when  he 
refrained  from  explanations,  Christopher  had  no  idea 
what  that  cost  him.  "I  know  not,"  says  the  author, 
"whether  in  renouncing  the  mysterious  opportunity  to 
which  he  alluded  Valentin  felt  himself  do  something 
very  generous.  If  so  he  was  not  rewarded ;  his  generosity 
was  not  appreciated.  Newman  failed  to  recognize  any 
power  to  disconcert  or  to  wound  him,  and  he  had  now  no 
sense  of  coming  off  easily."15 

A  story  in  which  the  main  actor  is  so  uninitiated  can 
bear  no  very  close  resemblance  to  the  story  of  Isabel 
Archer  or  Fleda  Vetch  or  Lambert  Strether.  There  is 
here  no  revelation  of  anything  through  Newman's  con 
sciousness — nothing  that  depends  on  his  understanding. 

14  P.  285. 
"  P.  160. 


Early  Prime  205 


There  is  in  fact  no  spiritual  dilemma.  That  is  why  the 
book  is  not  among  the  greatest  of  its  author's.  There  is 
a  gallant  fight  for  a  woman.  There  is  an  amusing  and 
finally  tragic  social  contrast  in  which  the  American  hero 
is  one  of  the  terms.  And  that  is  the  main  point  in  which 
this  is  recognizable  as  a  novel  of  Henry  James. 

(c)     The  Portrait  of  a  Lady 

Most  joyous  of  dates  in  all  our  chronicle  is  the  year 
1880.  It  is  in  contemplation  of  that  year  that  the  lover 
of  James  feels  his  blood  run  warmest.  The  footlights 
flash  on,  the  fiddles  begin,  and  faces  brighten  in  antici 
pation  of  the  three  knocks  and  the  parted  curtain.  It  is 
not  that  "Scribner's"  was  concluding  in  January  of  that 
year  the  publication  of  "Confidence,"  nor  that  "Harper's" 
from  July  to  December  was  setting  forth  the  charming 
study  of  "Washington  Square."  It  is  that  the  "Atlantic" 
this  side  the  water  and  "Macmillan's"  in  London  were 
showing  each  month  in  successive  tableaux  the  entralling 
"Portrait  of  a  Lady."  This  was  the  first  masterpiece 
of  Henry  James. 

He  was  still  far  from  his  technical  goal.  In  mechanical 
ways  the  work  is  still  very  different  from  that,  for 
example,  of  "The  Golden  Bowl,"  to  which  it  bears  a 
considerable  likeness  in  theme.  "The  Portrait"  is  a  novel 
like  other  novels,  taking  us  through  successive  stages 
in  the  history  of  its  characters.  It  is  the  biography  of 
Isabel  Archer,  and  has  the  general  character  of  a  chroni 
cle.  It  covers  a  number  of  years,  and  includes  a  number 
of  substantial  events.  Nearly  the  whole  first  volume  is 
taken  up  with  material  which  would  have  been  excluded 
from  the  more  distinctive  work  of  the  later  years.  The 
episode  of  Lord  Warburton  and  his  proposal,  the  death 


206  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

of  Mr.  Touchett  and  his  bequest  to  Isabel  are  two  major 
blocks  of  material  which  would  have  been  treated  briefly 
and  referential!/  as  a  part  of  the  antecedent  facts  of  the 
story.  "The  Golden  Bowl"  begins  at  a  point  correspond 
ing  to  a  point  somewhat  beyond  the  opening  of  the  second 
volume  of  the  earlier  novel, — just  before  the  marriage 
of  the  heroine,  which  ushers  in  (for  Isabel  as  for 
Maggie)  the  main  dramatic  complication.  Not  merely 
does  the  author  of  "The  Portrait"  give  a  whole  volume 
to  Isabel's  earlier  history  as  a  grown  woman.  When 
he  has  once  got  her  launched  in  this  earlier  career,  he 
stops  for  the  length  of  more  than  two  chapters  to  bring 
up  to  date  her  history  as  a  girl  and  that  of  her  cousin 
Ralph,  f  And  this  is  not  done,  as  it  would  have  been  done 
after  Io96,  by  reminiscence  and  dialogue  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  narrative  of  present  experience.} 

Again  the  earlier  technique  appears  in  the  large  num 
ber  of  characters  of  considerable  importance.  As  in  "The 
Golden  Bowl,"  there  are  but  four  major  characters, — 
Isabel,  Osmond,  Madame  Merle  and  Warburton.  But 
over  against  the  chorus-figure  of  Mrs.  Assingham  stand, 
in  "The  Portrait,"  Ralph  Touchett  and  Goodwood,  Hen 
rietta  Stackpole  and  Pansy,  even  if  we  leave  out  of 
account  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Touchett,  Mr.  Rosier  and  Mr. 
Bantling,  and  the  Countess  Gemini.  And  we  can  hardly 
leave  even  them  out  of  account,  considering  how  much 
attention  is  given  to  the  character  and  personal  history 
of  each  one  of  them. 

Mrs.  Assingham,  it  will  be  remembered,  is  given  no 
personal  history,  and  no  character  except  that  of  a  woman 
exceedingly  ingenious  in  the  interpretation  of  human 
nature.  She  is  necessary  for  the  dialogue.  The  minor 
characters  of  "The  Portrait"  have  a  similar  function; 
but  they  do  not  fulfil  it  to  anything  like  the  same  extent, 


Early  Prime  207 


since  the  dialogue  has  taken  on  very  little  of  its  later 
character.    It  serves  chiefly  to  display  the  various  breed 
ing  and  humors  of  the  persons  taking  part.    The  author 
has  not  yet  so  completely  neutralized  his  characters  as  to 
social  tone.     They  still  exhibit  some  of  the  variety  and 
picturesqueness  proper  to  characters  in  a  Victorian  novel. 
Vividest  in  this  respect  is  Henrietta  Stackpole,  with  her 
militant   Americanism,    her   militant   independence,   her 
journalistic  preoccupations,  and  her  intense  earnestness. 
But  even  Madame  Merle  is  occasionally  given  a  touch , 
that  suggests  Thackeray  more  than  James.     She  is  per-  j 
haps  the  most  perfect  creation  of  the  book,  and  her  line  - 
is  by  no  means  any  sort  of  vividness.     Her  line  is  the ! 
most  perfect  suavity  of  manner,  the  most  impeccable  of' 
self-effacing  good  tastey  But  there  is  at  least  one  occa 
sion  on  which  she  is  treated  for  a  moment  or  two  like  a 
person  in  a  novel   (or  comedy)    of   "manners."     Mrs. 
Touchett  is  discussing  the  comparatively  liberal  treat-  < 
ment  accorded  her  by  her  husband  in  his  will. 

"He  chose,  I  presume,  to  recognise  the  fact  that  though 
I  lived  much  abroad  and  mingled — you  may  say  freely — 
in  foreign  life,  I  never  exhibited  the  smallest  preference 
for  anyone  else." 

"For  anyone  but  yourself,"  Madame  Merle  mentally 
observed ;  but  the  reflection  was  perfectly  inaudible. 

"I  never  sacrificed  my  husband  to  another,"  Mrs. 
Touchett  continued  with  her  stout  curtness. 

"Oh,  no,"  thought  Madame  Merle ;  "you  never  did 
anything  for  another  !"16 

The  author  now  goes  on  to  explain  the  "cynicism  in  these 
mute  comments."  Madame  Merle  had  not  of  course 
expected  any  bequest  to  herself.  But — 

«  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  295-296. 


208  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

The  idea  of  a  distribution  of  property — she  would 
almost  have  said  of  spoils — just  now  pressed  upon  her 
senses  and  irritated  her  with  a  sense  of  exclusion.  I  am 
far  from  wishing  to  picture  her  as  one  of  the  hungry 
mouths  or  envious  hearts  of  the  general  herd,  but  we 
have  already  learned  of  her  having  desires  that  had  never 
been  satisfied.  If  she  had  been  questioned,  she  would 
of  course  have  admitted — with  a  fine  proud  smile — that 
she  had  not  the  faintest  claim  to  a  share  in  Mr.  Touchett's 
relics.  "There  was  never  anything  in  the  world  between 
us,"  she  would  have  said.  "There  was  never  that,  poor 
man !" — with  a  fillip  of  her  thumb  and  her  third  finger.17 

Perhaps  something  of  this  kind  is  necessary  at  this  point 
to  give  the  reader  a  bit  of  a  "tip"  on  what  lies  below  the 
surface  of  Madame  Merle's  exquisite  manner.  But  in 
the  later  work  James  would  have  managed  to  convey  a 
sense  of  these  depths  without  the  false  note  of  vulgarity. 
Or  else,  to  the  reader's  confusion,  he  would  have  left  him 
to  find  out  for  himself  without  the  aid  of  tips. 

But  the  early  manner  is  found  in  points  more  technical 
and  superficial  than  essential  and  organic.  Essentially 
"The  Portrait"  is  the  development  of  an  idea  by  the 
method  of  "revelation"  described  in  our  first  part.  The 
adventures  of  Isabel  Archer  are  more  spiritual  than 
material.  The  stages  of  her  chronicle  are  the  stages  by 
which  the  painter  fills  out  her  portrait.  Even  in  the 
preliminary  period  of  her  English  sojourn,  we  are  occu 
pied  with  the  discovery  of  a  woman  intensely  concerned 
to  make  her  life  fine,  hoping  "to  find  herself  in  a  difficult 
position,  so  that  she  should  have  the  pleasure  of  being  as 
heroic  as  the  occasion  demanded."  The  proposal  of  Lord 
Warburton  is  admitted  merely  in  order  that  she  may  assert 
in  striking  fashion  her  "enlightened  prejudice  in  favour 

17  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  296-297. 


Early  Prime  209 


of  the  free  exploration  of  life."18  It  is  not  ease  and 
security  that  are  desired  by  this  adventurous  American 
soul.  She  explains  to  her  reproachful  suitor  that  she 
cannot  hope  to  escape  her  fate,  cannot  avoid  unhappiness 
by  separating  herself  from  life — "from  the  usual  chances 
and  dangers,  from  what  most  people  know  and  suffer."19 
With  the  entry  of  Madame  Merle  towards  the  end 
of  the  first  volume,  the  painter  attacks  the  real  back 
ground  of  his  picture.  A  few  chapters  later  his  task 
begins  in  earnest  with  the  appearance  of  the  Florentine 
gentleman  who  is  to  become  the  most  prominent  feature 
in  the  heroine's  experience.  From  this  point  on,  the  work 
is  a  masterpiece  of  revelation ;  and  if  the  details  brought 
out  are  chiefly  details  of  "background" — having  to  do 
with  the  characters  of  Osmond  and  Madame  Merle — 
that  is  essentially  the  case  in  the  later  books.  The  back 
ground  circumstances  are  revealed  through  the  conscious 
ness  of  the  heroine  who  is  the  foreground  figure ;  and 
they  tend  to  bring  out  in  brighter  relief  the  beauty  of  this 
figure.  Every  trait  of  vanity  and  selfishness  in  Osmond 
gives  play  to  the  corresponding  traits  of  generous  large- 
mindedness  in  Isabel,  as  well  as  giving  her  occasion  for 
the  display  of  resourcefulness  in  difficult  social  relations. 
The  coldness  of  his  nature  serves  as  foil  to  the  flame-like 
warmth  of  hers.  And  the  earlier  stages  of  their  acquaint 
ance  bring  out  sufficiently  the  large  ground  of  taste  and 
sensibility  which  they  have  in  common.  I  must  deny  my 
self  the  agreeable  task  of  tracing  from  scene  to  scene  the 
nicely  graduated  steps  by  which  this  "sterile  dilettante" 
is  betrayed  to  us  first  and  then  to  Isabel,  and  the  steps 
by  which  there  dawn  upon  her  consciousness  the  more 

18  P.  155. 
"  P.  187. 


2io  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

and  more  bewildering,  the  more  and  more  heroic  features 
of  her  great  adventure. 

Nowhere  is  the  concern  of  the  story  more  beautifully 
than  in  "The  Portrait"  the  quality  of  experience.  It  is 
not  the  bare  facts  of  Gilbert's  relation  to  Madame  Merle 
and  Pansy,  revealed  at  the  climax  of  the  story  by  the 
Countess  Gemini,  that  are  of  importance,  it  is  the  values 
of  life  as  conceived  by  Gilbert  and  by  Madame  Merle 
upon  which  these  facts  throw  the'ir  final  interpretative 
light.  Nowhere  is  there  a  finer  indication  of  those  social 
anaesthetic  values  to  which  all  the  leading  characters  of 
James  are  devoted  than  in  the  scenes  of  Isabel's  growing 
admiration  for  Osmond.  Nowhere  short  of  "Poynton" 
and  "The  Golden  Bowl"  is  there  a  finer  display  of  the 
spiritual  values  that  transcend  the  others  than  in  the 
scenSToHsabers  growing  horror  of  her  husband.  "The 
Portrait  of  a  Lady"  has  thus  the  distinction  of  being  the 
first  novel  in  which  the  "figure  in  the  carpet"  stands  out 
in  distinct  and  glowing  beauty. 

But  no  mere  indication  of  the  order  of  this  novel 
in  the  author's  development  will  explain  the  many  graces 
and  charms  it  possesses  in  its  own  right.  There  is  some 
thing  about  the  personality  and  situation  of  Isabel  that 
gives  her  a  place  unique  in  the  whole  gallery.  It  is  a 
place  no  man  can  occupy.  A  man  may  have  the  advan 
tage  when  it  comes  to  the  freedom  of  adventure  of  a 
Pendennis  or  a  Tom  Jones.  But  the  very  limitations 
upon  her  freedom,  the  delicacy  of  her  position,  give  to 
the  adventures  of  a  brave  woman  an  attaching  pathos, 
and  even  a  spiritual  richness,  which  a  man's  can  seldom 
have.  The  limits  of  her  experience  outwardly  compel 
her  to  cultivate  it  intensively. 

Of  course  it  may  be  urged  that  Ralph  Touchett  shares 
this  advantage  in  disadvantage.  And  I  am  willing  to 


Early  Prime  211 


grant  him  a  very  large  measure  of  the  attractiveness 
of  the  generous  fettered  woman.  He  is  a  figure  beauti 
fully  conceived  and  executed.  And  indeed  there  is  no 
novel  of  James  in  which  we  find  so  many  characters  of 
a  warm  and  simple  humanity.  Something  of  a  like 
appeal  is  made  by  Mr.  Touchett,  by  Pansy.  We  are  fond 
even  of  Henrietta,  and  we  have  a  measure  of  charity 
for  Mrs.  Touchett  and  the  Countess  Gemini. 

In  fineness  of  execution,  Gilbert  Osmond  and  Madame 
Merle  take  their  place  beside  Isabel  herself.  Madame 
Merle  is  a  figure  of  even  rarer  conception, — having  no 
counterpart,  as  Isabel  may  be  thought  to  have,  among  the 
famous  creations  of  Meredith  and  George  Eliot.  And  she 
is  herself  so  much  of  a  victim,  and  a  person  of  so  much 
sdvoir  vivre  withal,  and  of  so  graceful  and  touching  a 
manner  of  exit,  that  we  cannot  forbear  to  open  our  hearts 
even  to  her. 

There  is  again  a  peculiar  charm  about  the  mise  en 
scene  of  this  drama.  None  of  the  English  country-places 
that  figure  so  largely  in  James  is  more  lovely  than  that 
of  the  American  banker  on  the  Thames.  Have  we  per 
haps  its  model,  by  the  way,  in  that  other  banker's  home 
alluded  to  by  Mr.  James  in  his  life  of  Story?  Surely  at 
least  the  golden  air  so  often  referred  to  in  that,  recon 
struction  of  the  earlier  time  is  what  envelops  the  Floren 
tine  villa  of  Gilbert  Osmond  in  the  days  before  his  true 
character  has  been  revealed. 

The  lover  of  James  will  ever  cherish  this  work  as  the 
prime  example  of  his  early  manner.  It  has  the  open  face 
of  youth.  There  is  a  lightness  and  freshne.ss  of  tone 
about  it  that  never  recurs  in  the  more  labored  work  of 
later  years.  It  is  the  first  of  his  compositions  entirely 
free  from  crudity  and  the  last  to  show  the  unalloyed 
charm  of  ingenuousness. 


212  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

(d)     The  Princess  Casamassima 

Five  years  after  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady"  appeared 
another  masterpiece,  and  this  too,  though  very  different 
in  quality,  was  an  example  of  the  early  manner  at  its 
best. 

In  some  ways  "The  Princess  Casamassima"  shows  an 
advance  in  technique.  It  is  true  that  the  history  of 
Hyacinth  Robinson  is  taken  up  at  an  even  earlier  point 
than  that  of  Isabel  Archer,  so  that  the  opening  chapters 
have  even  more  the  biographical  aspect.  But  the  Prin 
cess,  who  represents  in  the  experience  of  Hyacinth  some 
thing  like  what  Gilbert  Osmond  represents  in  that  of 
Isabel  Archer,  makes  her  appearance  much  earlier  in  the 
book.  There  are  decidedly  fewer  substantial  happenings 
in  the  later  story,  and  a  decidedly  more  limited  cast  of 
characters.  There  are  but  two  principals;  and  among 
the  minor  characters — Miss  Pynsent,  Mr.  Vetch,  Paul 
Muniment,  Lady  Aurora,  M.  Poupin,  Millicent  Henning 
— none  are  made  so  prominent  as  several  of  the  minor 
characters  in  "The  Portrait."  They  may  be  as  important 
functionally,  but  they  are  not  so  importunate  on  their 
own  behalf.  They  are  drawn  on  a  reduced  scale,  so  as  to 
be  kept  in  proper  subordination  to  the  "leads." 

And  if  the  characters  and  incidents  as  such  are  less 
in  evidence  they  are  more  strictly  held  to  accountability 
for  their  part  in  the  "revelation."  This  story  is  another 
beautiful  instance  of  an  "idea,  conceived  as  picture."  It 
is  an  idea  such  as  Mr.  Galsworthy  gave  so  fine  a  treat 
ment  in  "Fraternity," — that  of  the  privileged  and  the 
submerged  classes  stretching  out  to  one  another  vain 
hands  across  the  social  gulf.  But  while  in  Mr.  Gals 
worthy's  story  the  situation  is  viewed  chiefly  from  the 
side  of  the  privileged,  in  "The  Princess  Casamassima" 


Early  Prime  213 


it  is  the  man  born  to  the  shabby  life  of  poverty  who 
seems  from  his  side  to  see  a  door  opening  into  the  life 
of  large  freedom  and  cultivated  leisure.  In  the  con 
sciousness  of  Hyacinth,  the  foreground  is  occupied  by 
the  dark  and  painful  spectacle  of  his  fellow  victims  of 
the  social  order,  those  less  fortunate  even  than  himself. 
And  his  heart  is  filled  with  bitterness  and  the  need  for 
action  against  the  order  that  admits  of  so  much  ugliness 
and  misery.  But  his  encounter  with  the  radiant  creature 
of  privilege,  his  discovery  of  the  possibilities  of  refined 
social  intercourse,  his  survey  in  Paris  and  Venice  of  the 
treasures  of  art  and  the  accumulated  beauty  of  historical 
tradition,  sap  the  strength  of  his  conviction  until  he 
becomes  incapable  of  revolutionary  action.  The  con 
flicting  forces  of  his  inheritance  symbolize  and  to  some 
extent  create  the  insoluble  problem  that  drives  him  to 
suicide. 

But  I  should  not  use  the  word  problem.  This  novel  (/ 
has  not  the  slightest  political  intention.  It  is  not  even 
meant  to  have  Historical  and  documentary  value  like  the 
Russian  series  of  Turgenieff.  Mr.  James  does  not  pre 
tend  to  any  exact  knowledge  of  socialism.  And  I  fear 
that — at  least  in  this  connection — he  had  no  practical 
interest  in  it.  His  interest  was  entirely  that  of  an  artist 
wishing  to  convey  certain  impressions.  In  this  case  it 
was  the  long- accumulated  impressions  of  London  life 
that  besought  him  for  artistic  liberation.  Again  we  are 
made  aware  how  little  he  is  concerned  with  the  bare 
facts  of  experience.  It  was  the  color  and  feel  of  Hya 
cinth  Robinson's  experience  of  life  that  he  wished  to 
render.  And  poverty  and  mutter  of  revolution,  beautiful 
clever  women  and  hard  resolute  men,  were — like  Rose 
MunfmenT  and  Millicent  Henning — but  strands  in  the 
varicolored  web  of  this  experience.  As  for  the  revolu- 


214  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

tionary  movement,  the  very  vagueness  of  its  presentation 
was  a  part  of  James's  scheme.  "My  scheme,"  he  says 
"called  for  the  suggested  nearness  (to  all  our  apparently 
ordered  life)  of  some  sinister  anarchic  underworld,  heav 
ing  in  its  pain,  its  power  and  its  hate;  a  presentation 
not  of  sharp  particulars,  but  of  loose  appearances,  vague 
motions  and  sounds  and  symptoms,  just  perceptible  pres 
ences  and  general  looming  possibilities/'20 

This  story  can  never  have  quite  the  intensity  of  appeal 
of  "The  Portrait."  It  has  not  the  same  element  of  drama. 
And  while  the  experience  of  the  hero  may  be  poignant 
enough  in  its  effect  upon  his  feelings,  it  is  not  a  domestic 
experience,  it  is  not  definitely  formulated  as  a  sentimental 
tragedy.  And  it  is  for  the  domestic  and  the  sentimental 
drama  that  we  reserve  our  most  intense  concern. 

For  all  that,  it  is  a  masterpiece,  "The  Princess  Casa- 
massima."  It  is  a  work  of  great  and  finished  beauty. 
If  "The  Portrait"  glows  in  our  imagination  with  blue 
and  gold,  with  rich  brown  and  crimson,  "The  Princess 
Casamassima"  shines  with  a  subdued  pearly  lustre  that 
is  a  greater  triumph  of  devoted  skill.  There  is  a  velvety 
smoothness  in  its  movements  and  transitions.  It  is  a 
miracle  of  pitch  and  tone.  The  author  has  at  last 
achieved  a  perfect  command  of  the  mechanics  of  touch. 
Character  and  scene,  event  and  mystery  are  alike  ren 
dered  with  due  emphasis,  and  kept  in  their  right  place 
in  the  total  scale  of  values. 

This  does  not  mean  that  any  of  these  elements  is 
subdued  to  the  point  of  extinction.  The  minor  characters 
of  this  story  have  their  special  attractiveness.  Here  for 
once  James  has  given  us  his  own  peculiar  variety  of  what 
a  grateful  world  agrees  to  call  the  Dickens  type.  To  this 

20  Vol.  V,  p.  xxi. 


Early  Prime 


class  of  quaint  and  lovable  characters  belong  Aunt  Finnic 
and  Rose  Muniment,  M.  Poupin  and  the  Lady  Aurora. 
And  while  none  of  these  has  the  vivid  salience  of  Dickens 
figures,  they  are  none  the  less  real  and  endearing  on  that 
account.  The  London  of  this  story  is  likewise  the  entire 
possession  of  James, — not  the  terrible  black  city  of 
"Oliver  Twist"  nor  the  burlesque  London  of  the  White 
Horse  Tavern;  but  for  that  very  reason  a  city  more 
familiar  to  many  a  reader  who  has  taken  it  in  in  the  same 
somewhat  vague  and  disinterested  way  as  the  American 
author. 

But  most  prominent  element  of  all  in  the  experience 
of  Hyacinth  is  the  mysterious  and  beautiful  Princess, 
recalled  by  the  author  to  the  stage  for  his  special  benefit. 
She  is  for  Hyacinth  what  so  many  of  James's  characters 
crave  as  the  breath  of  life,  a  "social  relation."21  But  she  is 
also,  for  Hyacinth  and  for  us,  the  mystery  of  a  character 
not  thoroughly  understood.  We  are  soon  made  acquainted 
with  two  of  her  leading  traits, — her  world- weariness  and 
her  hatred  of  the  banal — which  together  send  her  forth 
on  her  bizarre  adventure  in  the  underworld.  But  what 
we  are  never  sure  of  is  how  far  she  is  human,  how  far 
she  is  capable  of  gratifying  that  desire  for  a  social,  a 
human  relation.  This  doubt  becomes  the  great  secondary 
motif  of  the  composition.  And  the  gradual  emergence 
of  certainty  upon  this  question  takes  its  place  with  the 
gradual  aggravation  of  Hyacinth's  larger  problem  as  a 
perfect  instance  of  the  story-telling  method  of  James. 

21  The  reader  may  remember  the  pathetic  figure  of  Herbert 
Dodd,  keeper  of  a  bookstore,  in  "The  Bench  of  Desolation,"  and 
the  surprised  delight  with  which  he  finally  discovers  himself  to 
be  in  a  social  relation  with  Kate  Cookham. 


216  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

(e)     The  Tragic  Muse 

It  is  often  assumed,  perhaps  because  of  its  date,  that 
"The  Tragic  Muse"  is  a  transitional  work,  marking  a 
great  advance  towards  the  technique  of  the  later  period. 
This  seems  to  me  a  mistaken  assumption.  Both  in  refer 
ence  to  the  course  of  James's  technical  evolution,  and 
in  point  of  intrinsic  worth,  "The  Tragic  Muse"  shows 
a  recession  from  the  point  reached  in  "The  Portrait"  and 
"The  Princess  Casamassima." 

It  is,  to  be  sure,  a  very  fine  novel.  And  in  certain 
obvious  ways  it  is  more  advanced  in  technique  than  the 
earlier  masterpieces.  It  has  not  the  biographical  struc 
ture,  concerned  as  it  is  with  a  company  of  people  all 
grouped  together  at  the  start  in  what  may  be  compared 
to  the  first  act  of  a  play.  In  this  respect  it  gives  the  sense 
of  being  more  compact.  And  while  there  are  passages 
of  generalizing  psychology22  and  considerable  "blocks  of 
referential  narrative"23  in  "The  Tragic  Muse,"  perhaps 
upon  inspection  the  earlier  novels  would  show  a  larger 
number  of  these  telltale  spots. 

It  is  in  the  larger  view  that  "The  Tragic  Muse"  shows 
the  retrograde  progress.  I  have  noted  before,  the  effect 
of  the  double  plot  for  dissipating  the  intensity  of  interest. 
There  are  just  twice  as  many  major  characters  in  "The 
Tragic  Muse"  as  in  "The  Princess  Casamassima."  And 
if  we  count  as  many  major  characters  in  "The  Portrait" 
as  in  "The  Tragic  Muse,"  there  is  the  difference  of  their 
all  being  actors  in  one  identical  drama.  The  best  that  can 
be  said  for  "The  Tragic  Muse"  is  that  the  two  separate 
dramas  are  related  and  ingeniously  woven  together,  and 
that  the  idea  developed  is  practically  the  same  in  each 

22  See,  for  example,  Vol.  VII,  pp.  148  and  185. 

23  For  example,  pp.  81-88. 


Early  Prime  217 


case.  But  they  remain  two  stories  for  all  that ;  and  while 
the  idea  may  gain  in  comprehensiveness,  it  must  lose  in 
continuity,  intensity,  and  logical  neatness  of  evolution. 
And  so  the  work  is  wanting  in  compactness,  and  above 
all  in  leisureliness.  In  reference  to  certain  parts  of  the 
story  of  Miriam,  James  has  himself  acknowledged  the 
unduly  rapid  rate  of  progress,  which  has  made  impossible 
any  true  representation  of  the  circumstances.  And  we 
feel  the  same  want  of  leisurely  development  in  the  whole 
of  the  first  and  last  books.  The  first  book  is  too  full  of 
the  bustle  and  commotion  of  marshalling  his  numerous 
cohorts  to  admit  the  kind  of  exposition  in  which  James 
excels.  It  is  all  taken  up  with  stage  "business."  As 
for  the  last  book,  it  makes  almost  the  typical  conclusion 
of  an  old-fashioned  novel,  showing  the  benevolent 
author's  disposition  of  his  puppets  (what  happened  and 
who  got  whom).  It  is  very  unlike  the  winding  up  of  a 
story  of  Henry  James. 

And  this  brings  us  to  a  realization  that  in  essentials 
the  book  is  even  less  distinctive  of  James's  matured 
method  than  in  the  superficial  aspects  of  technique.  It 
has  an  idea  conceived  as  picture:  so  murh  is  true.  But 
it  is  an  inferior  idea  for  the  purposes  of  James.  Inferior, 
as  we  have  seen,  because  so  obvious,  offering  so  little 
for  interpretation.  I  suppose  one  would  hardly  have  been 
able  to  predicate  this  in  advance,  especially  considering 
that  James  seems  not  to  have  done  so  himself.  The 
case  of  the  artistic  as  against  the  practical  temperament, 
exemplified  first  in  the  relation  of  Nick  Dormer  to  Julia 
Dallow  and  secondly  in  that  of  Miriam  to  Peter  Sherring- 
ham,  seemed  to  him  to  bristle  with  nice  points  for  eluci 
dation.  And  it  did  make  handsomely  for  complication 
and  excitement.  It  is  exciting  to  read  of  the  triumphs 
of  Miriam,  of  Nick  Dormer's  sacrifice  of  a  career,  of 


218  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

the  confrontation  of  Julia  and  Miriam  in  Nick's  studio, 
of  the  breathless  return  of  Peter  from  the  Indies.  But 
for  the  idea  proper  the  material  simply  didn't  "pan  out." 
It  panned  out  best  in  two  directions, — in  connection  with 
Miriam  and  with  the  minor  and  altogether  incidental 
figure  of  Gabriel  Nash.  The  latter  is  scarcely  more  than 
a  living  type  of  our  "figure  in  the  carpet" ;  and  the  degree 
of  Nick  Dormer's  understanding  of  him  is  the  degree  of 
his  devotion  to  the  life  of  the  artist.  So  that  the  scenes 
in  which  Gabriel  Nash  makes  his  apologia  are  for  Nick 
Dormer  the  scenes  of  "revelation."  What  Nick  Dormer 
wanted  to  make  out  was  whether  Gabriel  Nash  could 
really  be  considered  a  gentleman,  or  whether  his  theory 
and  practice  of  "working  in  life"  as  an  art  did  actually 
make  an  ass  of  him.  Peter  Sherringham  has  a  similar 
perplexity  in  reference  to  Miriam.  He  is  forever  trying 
to  make  out  whether  she  has  any  "private  life,"  to  use  the 
phrase  from  another  story  of  James.  The  revelation  of 
the  artist-life  to  him  is  the  revelation  of  her  complete 
absorption  in  artistic  self-expression.  But  in  the  case 
both  of  Nick's  Gabriel  and  of  Peter's  Miriam,  the  possi 
bilities  for  revelation  are  soon  exhausted, — certainly 
before  the  end  of  the  first  volume.  After  that  it  is  an 
old  story,  with  new  items  perhaps,  but  no  extension  of 
light.  Here  we  feel  the  contrast  to  "The  Portrait  of  a 
Lady"  and  "The  Princess  Casamassima,"  where  the 
revelation  is  only  just  beginning  with  the  opening  of  the 
second  volume  and  where  it  goes  on  with  growing  inten 
sity  to  the  end. 

"The  Tragic  Muse"  may  very  well  be  one  of  the  most 
popular  of  James's  novels,  especially  for  readers  who  are 
not  over  fond  of  James.  It  has  many  material 
features  of  interest.  It  has  to  do  with  the  studio  and 
the  stage ;  and  we  are  all  crazy  about  the  stage  in  partic- 


Early  Prime  219 


ular, — or,  as  James  himself  makes  the  distinction,  about 
actors  and  all  the  personal  and  outward  side  of  stage 
affairs.  We  like  moreover  to  have  the  connection  made 
between  the  more  Bohemian  occupations  and  the  impor 
tant  figures  of  the  political  and  the  diplomatic  world. 
The  people  of  "The  Muse"  are  all  such  well-favored 
imposing  characters,  playing  their  parts  in  the  bright  light 
of  general  interest, — figures  to  arouse  our  envy  and 
admiration.  It  is  nothing  against  them  from  this  point 
of  view  that  they  are  ordinary  figures.  But  the  forte  of 
Henry  James  is  another  sort  of  figure, — the  rare,  the 
retiring  character,  very  fine  if  you  can  see  the  fineness, 
but  always  in  need  of  interpretation.  Hyacinth  Robinson 
is  such  a  rare  one,  and  Ralph  Touchett,  Fleda  Vetch  and 
Maggie  Verver.  But  hardly  Peter  Sherringham  or 
Miriam  Rooth  or  Julia  Dallow.  Gabriel  Nash  may  be 
a  rare  bird,  but  he  is  a  bird  of  too  strange  a  feather 
for  this  category.  I  have  spoken  of  Mr.  Galsworthy's 
"Fraternity"  as  being  called  to  mind  by  "The  Princess 
Casamassima."  "The  Tragic  Muse"  has  more  likeness  to 
Mr.  Galsworthy's  "Patricians,"  which  I  presume  to  be 
a  more  popular,  as  it  is  a  much  less  beautiful,  work  than 
"Fraternity."  "The  Patricians"  and  "The  Tragic  Muse" 
remind  me  of  particularly  splendid  oil  paintings,  sumptu 
ous  Lawrences  or  Gainsboroughs,  such  as  one  finds  in 
collections  that  include  only  the  soundest  specimens  of 
certified  value.  They  are  guilty  of  no  defect  or  short 
coming.  They  are  well  varnished  and  magnificently 
framed.  They  are  guaranteed  to  hold  their  colors.  They 
are  distinctly  important.  But  they  are  more  handsome 
than  beautiful,  more  striking  than  rare.  I  am  speaking 
only  comparatively,  of  course.  The  work  of  Mr.  Gals 
worthy  as  well  as  the  work  of  James,  is  never  wholly 
wanting  in  rarity.  But  it  is  our  business  and  our  sport 


22O  The  Method  of  Henry  James 


to  make  distinctions.  Mr.  James  speaks  with  great  satis 
faction  of  the  sustained  "tone"  of  "The  Tragic  Muse," 
and  he  is  no  doubt  right  about  it.  Only  one  has  to  record 
one's  impression  that  it  is — comparatively,  of  course — a 
vulgar,  or  at  any  rate  a  common,  tone. 


Ill 

NON-CANONICAL 

The  work  of  James,  like  that  of  Mr.  Hardy,  showed, 
almost  to  the  end  of  his  career,  a  most  surprising  uneven- 
ness.  Novels  of  great  power  were  regularly  accompanied 
or  succeeded  by  others  distinctly  inferior.  It  is  as  if  the 
stronger  works  had  sapped  the  strength  of  those  that 
grew  beside  them,  rising  to  a  greater  height  and  depriving 
them  of  sunlight.  Once  or  twice  one  is  inclined  to  wonder 
whether  this  fastidious  artist,  under  pressure,  was  driven 
to  defend  the  integrity  of  his  cherished  works  by  a  frank 
sacrifice  to  the  gods  of  the  market  of  others  less  happily 
born.  But  we  are  not  forced  to  this  hypothesis.  It  may 
be  sufficient  to  assume  that,  up  to  so  late  a  period,  the 
restless  spirit  of  the  artist  insisted  on  trying  curious 
experiments.  And  this  is  the  more  reasonable  supposi 
tion,  inasmuch  as  James  had  not  thoroughly  and  success 
fully  tried  out  his  distinctive  method  in  a  long  novel  till 
very  near  the  end  of  all  his  writing.  At  any  rate  we  must 
record  the  fact  that,  in  the  course  of  the  early  period, 
while  he  was  producing  the  five  superior  novels  discussed 
in  the  last  chapter,  he  was  turning  out  no  less  than  four 
others  for  which  he  later  found  no  place  in  his  collected 
works. 

It  has  seemed  more  worth  while  to  center  attention 
upon  the  superior  works.  And  I  shall  not  feel  bound  to 
go  over  in  perfunctory  detail  the  many  and  obvious  points 
in  which  the  rejected  stories  fall  short  of  the  ideal  of 
James.  There  is  no  one  of  them,  whatever  its  date,  which 


222  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

does  not  suffer  greatly  by  contrast  with  "The  Portrait" 
or  even  with  "Roderick  Hudson/'  in  point  of  technique. 
Everywhere  in  these  experiments  triumphs  the  bald  and 
direct  manner  of  narration,  to  the  great  distress  of  any 
reader  who  has  learned  from  James  the  pleasure  of 
making  things  out  for  himself  from  the  data  furnished. 
Such  a  reader  is  not  flattered  to  be  informed  in  the  first 
chapter  of  "The  Europeans"  that  when  Madame  Miin- 
ster  came  to  Boston  it  was  to  seek  her  fortune ;  and  he 
is  likely  to  be  bored  with  the  preliminary  assurances  in 
regard  to  Doctor  Sloper  in  "Washington  Square"  that 
he  was  very  witty  and  thoroughly  honest,  not  to  speak 
of  what  further  is  vouchsafed  in  regard  to  the  person 
and  character  of  the  late  Mrs.  Sloper.  But  it  is  in  "The 
Bostonians"  that  the  reader  is  called  upon  for  the  greatest 
display  of  patience.  For  example,  he  is  invited  to  make 
the  acquaintance  of  Miss  Birdseye.  Miss  Birdseye  is  an 
estimable  woman,  and  her  appearance  and  movements  are 
described  with  some  suggestion  of  the  humor  of  Dickens 
where  he  introduces  us  to  the  lady  so  deeply  interested 
in  Borrioboola-Gha.  But  we  cannot  imagine  Dickens 
so  far  forgetting  the  showman's  art  as  to  let  us  know, 
of  anyone,  that  she  was  "a  confused,  entangled,  incon 
sequent,  discursive  old  woman,  whose  charity  began  at 
home  and  ended  nowhere,  whose  credulity  kept  pace  with 
it,  and  who  knew  less  about  her  fellow-creatures,  if  possi 
ble,  after  fifty  years  of  humanitary  zeal,  than  on  the  day 
she  had  gone  into  the  field  to  testify  against  the  iniquity 
of  most  arrangements."1 

Of  the  four  stories  in  this  group,  all  but  one  are  laid 
entirely  in  America ;  and  in  that  one,  all  the  main  charac 
ters  are  American  tourists  whose  contact  with  the  old 

i  P.  27. 


Non-Canonical  "  223 


world  is  of  the  most  superficial  sort.  I  will  leave  it  to 
the  reader  to  draw  a  connection  between  these  facts  and 
the  other  circumstance  that,  in  all  of  these  novels,  the 
people  are  rather  dull  and  commonplace  on  the  whole. 
This  was  not  from  any  unpatriotic  intention  on  the  part 
of  the  author.  In  several  cases,  like  those  of  Robert 
Acton  in  "The  Europeans"  and  Angela  Vivian  in  "Con 
fidence,"  he  wished  us  to  think  of  his  creature  as  clever 
and  interesting.  And  we  know  that  he  regarded  the 
Doctor  in  "Washington  Square"  as  "very  witty."  Only 
he  failed  to  provide  for  these  characters  substantial 
enough  materials  for  them  to  exercise  their  wits  upon. 
There  is  no  "idea"  in  any  of  these  stories,  with  one  pos 
sible  exception.  There  is  nothing  in  the  situation  worthy 
of  the  fine  interpretation  or  subtle  strategy  which  these 
characters  are  prepared  to  devote  to  it.  Robert  Acton  has 
simply  to  make  out,  as  we  are  told  in  so  many  words, 
whether  the  Baroness  is  a  liar.  Doctor  Sloper  has  no 
more  delicate  task  than  that  of  bullying  his  daughter. 
Under  these  circumstances  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  author 
is  constantly  moving  his  post  of  observation  as  if  the 
impressions  of  the  several  characters  were  all  of  equal 
importance.  But  it  follows  from  this  want  of  steadiness 
in  the  point  of  view  that  there  is  no  growth  of  interest 
as  the  story  goes  on.  In  every  case  the  interest  flags 
toward  the  middle;  and  only  in  "Washington  Square" 
does  the  story  come  out  strong  and  effective  at  the  end. 

(a)     Confidence,  The  Bostonians,  The  Europeans 

Least  successful  of  all  these  stories  is  "Confidence." 
This  work  saw  the  light  almost  at  the  same  time  as  "The 
Portrait,"  but  no  one  will  quarrel  with  Mr.  James  over 
his  failure  to  preserve  it.  It  is  a  mild  and  rather  flavor- 


224.  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

less  tale  of  misunderstandings  between  young  lovers. 
Bernard  Longueville,  having  been  set  by  a  friend  the 
task  of  reporting  on  the  character  of  Angela  Vivian,  upon 
whom  his  friend  has  sentimental  designs,  mistakes  for 
coquetry  what  is  really  a  modest  woman's  inclination 
to  himself.  His  friend  marries  another  shallower  girl; 
and  when  later  Bernard  discovers  his  own  love  for 
Angela,  he  feels  bound  to  disguise  it.  The  story  is 
largely  worked  up  out  of  the  ensuing  conflict  between 
love  and  honor,  and  has  about  as  much  relation  to  real 
life  as  those  romantic  conflicts  recorded  in  old  French 
plays  and  novels.  The  strength  and  quality  of  the  senti 
ment,  as  well  as  the  character  of  the  complications,  sug 
gest  the  light  comedies  of  Marivaux,  although  it  must  be 
confessed  there  is  little  suggestion  of  the  delicate  grace 
and  ingenuity  of  the  French  comedy.  The  dialogue  is 
often  juvenile  in  effect,  and  well  adapted  to  the  taste  of 
very  young  readers  ...  in  the  years  1879  and  '80  ! 

Much  more  serious,  as  well  as  more  pretentious,  work 
is  that  in  "The  Bostonians,"  a  contemporary  of  "The 
Princess  Casamassima."  But  again  Mr.  James  must  be 
applauded  for  his  adverse  judgment  upon  this  novel. 
This  story  might  he  said  to  have  a  theme.  It  seems  to 
have  been  meant  for  an  ironical  picture,  at  the  same  time, 
of  feminism  and  of  the  Boston  temper  of  mind.  Earnest- 
minded  Beacon  Street  is  typified  by  Olive  Chancellor, 
of  the  high-strung  nerves,  whose  imagination  is  all  taken 
up  with  the  immemorial  sufferings  and  wrongs  of  women. 
Boston  as  the  begetter  of  fads  and  freaks  is  represented, 
among  others,  by  the  humanitarian  Miss  Birdseye,  the 
professional  Doctor  Prance  (of  the  same  sex),  the  spirit 
ualist  Tarrants.  The  antithesis  to  the  Boston  temper 


Non-Canonical  225 


is  furnished  by  Basil  Ransome,  the  Mississippi  cousin  of 
Olive, — anti-feminist  and  champion  of  nature  and  com 
mon  sense.  The  bone  of  contention  between  the  two 
parties  is  Verena  Tarrant,  ingenue  and  "inspirational" 
speaker  on  the  wrongs  and  the  merits  of  women.  In 
spite  of  the  atmosphere  of  charlatanry  in  which  she  has 
been  bred,  she  /is  a  girl  of  simple,  sincere  nature,  well 
worthy  of  the  devotion  of  Olive  and  Basil.  Olive  longs 
with  all  her  heart  to  dedicate  Verena  to  the  cause,  and  to 
prevent  the  catastrophe  of  love  and  marriage;  whereas 
Basil  sees  in  her  only  the  possibilities  for  personal  and 
domestic  happiness.  Basil  wins  out ;  and  in  his  triumph, 
I  suppose,  we  are  shown  the  triumph  of  common  sense, 
or  of  natural  law. 

The  demonstration  is  not  very  convincing.  And  the 
process  is  often  dull. 

The  first  part  of  the  story  is  fairly  interesting,  though 
decidedly  crude  in  comparison  with  the  better  work  of 
James.  Satire  is  not  his  forte,  nor  humorous  portraiture 
of  the  Dickens  order.  The  account  of  the  South  Boston 
conventicle  is  full  and  conscientious,  but  rather  heavy. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  several  descriptions  in  the 
course  of  the  book,  in  which  the  disciple  of  Balzac  under 
takes  to  render  in  some  detail  the  effect  of  American 
architecture  and  urban  vistas,  giving  "a  collective  impres 
sion  of  boards  and  tin  and  frozen  earth,  sheds  and  rotting 
piles  .  .  .  loose  fences,  vacant  lots,  mounds  of  refuse."2 

After  the  satirical  and  expository  part  begins  the  story 
proper.  It  is  not  very  exciting,  consisting  largely  in  a 
perfunctory  complication  by  means  of  clandestine  meet 
ings,  rival  lovers,  scheming  widows.  Still  less  interesting 
is  the  concluding  third  of  the  book,  in  which  we  are 

2  Pp.  174-175. 


226  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

simply  waiting  for  a  definite  announcement  of  the  out 
come.  We  cannot  be  greatly  in  doubt  as  to  what  the 
outcome  is  going  to  be.  There  are  no  perplexities  of 
psychology  or  situation  to  be  resolved.  The  delay  is  occa 
sioned  only,  it  seems,  by  the  author's  feeling  that  the 
story  should  be  prolonged  on  general  principles,  or — to 
do  him  better  justice — by  a  feeling  on  his  part  that  he 
must  give  us  somehow  a  due  sense  of  the  lapse  of  time. 
The  concluding  scene  at  the  Music  Hall  is  exciting  enough 
in  conception,  and  might  have  been  melodramatic  in  effect 
if  James  had  been  capable  of  letting  himself  go.  But  that 
is  not  conceivable;  and  a  potentially  melodramatic  con 
clusion  does  not  drown  the  memory  of  a  story  dragged 
out  to  a  tiresome  length. 

Much  more  entertaining  is  "The  Europeans,"  which 
makes  no  pretensions  to  a  substantial  treatment  of  its 
subject.  There  are  in  this  book  several  scenes  of  deli 
cious  light  comedy,  arising  from  the  opposing  points  of 
view  of  the  visitors  and  their  American  kin.  The  comedy 
centers  in  the  seventh  chapter,  in  which  the  somewhat 
light-minded  young  painter,  Felix,  exchanges  views  with 
his  grave  and  conscientious  uncle,  while  the  latter  is  sit 
ting  reluctantly  for  his  portrait.  Most  amusing  is  the 
perplexity  of  Felix  over  the  relations  of  his  cousin,  young 
Clifford,  and  Lizzie  Acton.  Clifford,  it  will  be  recalled, 
had  been  suspended  from  Harvard  College  for  undue 
indulgence  in  liquor.  He  is  presumably  a  "dangerous" 
young  man.  And  Felix  cannot  understand  how  he  can 
be  allowed  such  intimacy  with  the  jeune  fille  unless  they 
are  engaged.  He  is  obviously  Lizzie's  beau,  and  Felix 
is  unwilling  to  assume  the  existence  of  anything  so  im 
proper  as  a  "clandestine  engagement."  The  worldly 
young  man  might  be  supposed  to  be  gently  lecturing  his 


Non-Canonical  22' 


senior  on  the  proprieties  of  the  situation.  The  comedy 
reaches  its  height  when  Felix  innocently  proposes  that 
Clifford  be  put  under  the  civilizing  influence  of  his  sister, 
Madame  Miinster.  Mr.  Wentworth  is  greatly  puzzled 
and  embarrassed  by  this  suggestion,  as  he  takes  it,  that 
his  son  shall  make  love  to  a  married  woman — even  though 
her  marriage  may  be  only  "morganatic" !  "Ah,"  said 
Felix,  smiling,  "of  course  she  can't  marry  him.  But  she 
will  do  what  she  can."  "Doubtless  he  supposes,"  he  said 
to  himself  after  this  conversation,  "that  I  desire,  out  of 
fraternal  benevolence,  to  procure  for  Eugenia  the  amuse 
ment  of  a  flirtation — or,  as  he  probably  calls  it,  an  intrigue 
— with  the  too  susceptible  Clifford.  It  must  be  admitted 
— and  I  have  noticed  it  before — that  nothing  exceeds  the 
license  occasionally  taken  by  the  imagination  of  very 
rigid  people."3 

James  is  quite  happy  throughout  in  his  way  of  hitting 
off  the  rigidities  of  these  people.  And  he  succeeds  in 
enlisting  our  sympathies  in  the  effort  of  Gertrude  Went 
worth  to  throw  off  the  burden  of  an  over-serious  view 
of  life.  There  is  here  a  pleasing  study  for  the  social  con 
trast  suggested  by  the  title.  But  there  is  little  more  than 
this.  Life  is  touched  only  in  those  tentative  preliminary 
stages  where  its  problems  do  not  become  pressing.  A 
typical  James  situation  would  arise  only  after  the  mar 
riage  and  migration  of  Gertrude,  when  her  aspiration 
towards  happiness  and  gayety  might  be  brought  to  the 
test  of  experience.  So  that,  while  these  pages  undoubt 
edly  contain  much  that  is  worth  attention,  we  shall 
probably  agree  with  the  author  that  the  novel  as  a  whole 
is  scarcely  worth  the  double  star  signified  by  admittance 
to  the  New  York  edition. 

s  P.  149. 


228  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

(b)     Washington  Square 

The  one  instance  in  which  we  feel  bound  to  demur 
from  the  author's  verdict  is  "Washington  Square."  And 
this  is  the  one  case  in  which  we  have  to  distinguish 
sharply  between  the  distinctive  and  the  successful. 
"Washington  Square"  is  anything  but  a  typical  work  of 
James.  While  we  recognize  the  flavor  of  his  writing  in 
individual  passages,  the  technique  on  the  whole  is  much 
more  suggestive  of  Mr.  Howells  than  of  the  author  of 
"The  Portrait"  and  "The  Ambassadors."  There  is 
scarcely  one  of  the  articles  in  our  definition  of  the  James 
method  which  could  here  be  applied  without  great  modi 
fication.  "Washington  Square"  is  a  very  simple  account 
of  the  love  affair  of  a  very  simple  woman.  It  is  indeed 
an  essential  factor  in  the  story  of  Catherine  Sloper  that 
she  had  an  exceptionally  dull  mind  and  a  most  limited 
imagination;  and  one  realizes  at  once  how  incompatible 
that  is  with  the  kind  of  story-telling  proper  to  the  case 
of  Hyacinth  Robinson  or  Fleda  Vetch.  Catherine  is 
anything  but  lacking  in  character  and  sensibility;  but 
she  has  no  active  mental  reaction  to  her  situation. 
Her  strength  is  of  the  passive  order, — a  strength  of  resist 
ance,  a  capacity  for  suffering  and  silence.  And  it  is  no 
small  credit  to  the  creator  of  Nanda  Brookenham  that 
he  has  resisted  all  temptation  to  state  the  facts  of  Cath 
erine's  story  in  any  but  the  plainest  of  terms.  Every 
thing  is  as  simple,  as  bald  if  you  like,  as  Catherine's  own 
statement  to  her  lover  on  his  return  to  her  after  many 
years.  "You  treated  me  badly,"  said  Catherine. 

Catherine  is  in  the  beginning  a  very  young  girl,  utterly 
without  social  practice  or  competence;  and  the  reader 
is  at  first  impressed  with  the  thinness,  almost  the  insip 
idity,  of  the  record  of  her  reactions, — her  agitation  on 


Non-Canonical  229 


being  introduced  to  the  handsome  young  man,  her  naive 
affirmation  as  to  his  tremendous  refinement,  her  awkward 
and  unnecessary  false  declaration  to  her  father  that  she 
doesn't  know  the  name  of  the  person  in  question.  We 
are  perhaps  at  first  a  little  impatient.  We  feel  cheated 
at  being  paid  in  coin  of  such  juvenile  currency.  Before 
we  have  proceeded  very  far,  however,  we  realize  that 
there  is  more  than  the  usual  measure  of  humanity  in  the 
baldnesses  and  embarrassments  of  Catherine  Sloper.  Long 
before  the  conclusion  lends  its  sculpturesque  roundness 
and  "plasticity"  to  her  figure,  we  have  become  conscious 
of  something  as  peculiar  and  as  piquant  about  this  per 
sonality  as  the  citrus  flavor  in  orange  or  grapefruit. 
Such  a  piquancy  seasons  in  particular  the  awkward  inter 
views  of  Catherine  with  her  formidable  father, — that,  for 
example,  in  which  he  asks  her  ironically  whether  Morris 
has  proposed  to  her  today. 

This  was  just  what  she  had  been  afraid  he  would  say ; 
and  yet  she  had  no  answer  ready.  Of  course  she  would 
have  liked  to  take  it  as  a  joke — as  her  father  must  have 
meant  it;  and  yet  she  would  have  liked  also,  in  denying 
it,  to  be  a  little  positive,  a  little  sharp,  so  that  he  would 
perhaps  not  ask  the  question  again.  She  didn't  like  it — 
it  made  her  unhappy.  But  Catherine  could  never  be 
sharp;  and  for  a  moment  she  only  stood,  with  her  hand 
on  the  door-knob,  looking  at  her  satiric  parent,  and  giving 
a  little  laugh. 

"Decidedly,"  said  the  Doctor  to  himself,  "my  daughter 
is  not  brilliant!" 

But  he  had  no  sooner  made  this  reflection  than  Cath 
erine  found  something ;  she  had  decided,  on  the  whole,  to 
take  the  thing  as  a  joke. 

"Perhaps  he  will  do  it  the  next  time,"  she  exclaimed, 
with  a  repetition  of  her  laugh ;  and  she  quickly  got  out  of 
the  room.4 

*  Pp.  46-47. 


230  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

If  we  are  in  any  doubt  as  to  the  exquisite  humor  and 
pathos  of  this  passage,  our  doubt  is  dispelled  by  the 
simple  beauty  of  the  pictures  with  which  the  story  closes. 
Catherine's  lover  has  proved  the  mercenary  character  of 
his  feeling  by  his  retirement  in  the  face  of  her  father's 
opposition.  She  has  no  illusions  with  regard  to  him ;  but 
she  has  the  integrity  of  her  own  sentiment,  and  she  stead 
fastly  declines  all  opportunities  of  consoling  herself  for 
her  great  disappointment.  "From  her  own  point  of  view 
the  facts  of  her  career  were  that  Morris  Townsend  had 
trifled  with  her  affection,  and  that  her  father  had  broken 
its  spring.  Nothing  could  ever  alter  these  facts;  they 
were  always  there,  like  her  name,  her  age,  her  plain  face. 
.  .  .  There  was  something  dead  in  her  life,  and  her 
duty  was  to  try  to  fill  the  void."5  And  so  we  trace  the 
course  of  her  growth  into  a  quaint  and  likable  "maiden- 
aunt  to  the  younger  portion  of  society."  It  is  chiefly  in 
her  quiet  domestic  setting  that  we  see  her  in  the  end, — 
seated  night  after  night  with  her  Aunt  Lavinia  in  the 
Washington  Square  parlor,  the  windows  open  to  the 
balcony,  and  the  lamps  lighted  or  dark  according  to  the 
state  of  the  mercury.  It  is  here  that  she  had  the  last 
meeting  with  her  returned  lover,  when  she  declined  to 
see  him  any  more  since  there  was  "no  propriety  in  it — 
no  reason  for  it."  It  was  here  that,  after  his  departure, 
"picking  up  her  morsel  of  fancy-work,  she  .  .  .  seated 
herself  with  it  again — for  life,  as  it  were." 

By  the  time  we  reach  this  point,  the  character  of  Cath 
erine  has  taken  on  substance  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
length  of  the  narrative.  And  this  is  true  to  a  less  degree 
of  Washington  Square  itself.  Of  all  the  novels  in  which 
James  endeavors  to  fix  some  aspect  of  "the  American 

s  P.  244. 


Non-Canonical  231 


scene,"  this  is  the  only  one  in  which  he  approaches  suc 
cess.  And  here  the  success  derives  not  from  any  com 
pleteness  or  intensity  in  the  representation,  but  from 
a  certain  quiet  persuasiveness  about  the  tone  of  the  pic 
ture.  Perhaps  this  is  largely  due  to  the  fond  piety  of 
the  references  to  a  neighborhood  so  familiar  to  the 
author's  childhood,  a  piety  expressed  in  passages  sug 
gesting  the  manner  of  earlier  Victorian  romancers  or 
of  Georgian  essayists. 

I  know  not  whether  it  is  owing  to  the  tenderness 
of  early  associations,  but  this  portion  of  New  York 
appears  to  many  persons  the  most  delectable.  It  has  a 
kind  of  established  repose  which  is  not  of  frequent  occur 
rence  in  other  quarters  of  the  long,  shrill  city;  it  has  a 
riper,  richer,  more  honorable  look  than  any  of  the  upper 
ramifications  of  the  great  longitudinal  thoroughfare — 
the  look  of  having  had  something  of  a  social  history. 
It  was  here,  as  you  might  have  been  informed  on  good 
authority,  that  you  had  come  into  a  world  which  appeared 
to  offer  a  variety  of  sources  of  interest ;  it  was  here  that 
your  grandmother  lived,  in  venerable  solitude,  and  dis 
pensed  a  hospitality  which  commended  itself  alike  to  the 
infant  imagination  and  the  infant  palate ;  it  was  here  that 
you  took  your  first  walks  abroad,  following  the  nursery 
maid  with  unequal  step,  and  sniffing  the  strange  odor  of 
the  ailanthus  trees  which  at  that  time  formed  the  principal 
umbrage  of  the  Square,  and  diffused  an  aroma  that  you 
were  not  yet  critical  enough  to  dislike  as  it  deserved;  it 
was  here,  finally,  that  your  first  school,  kept  by  a  broad- 
bosomed,  broad-based  old  lady  with  a  ferule,  who  was 
always  having  tea  in  a  blue  cup,  with  a  saucer  that  didn't 
match,  enlarged  the  circle  both  of  your  observations  and 
your  sensations.  It  was  here,  at  any  rate,  that  my  heroine 
spent  many  years  of  her  life ;  which  is  my  excuse  for  this 
topographical  parenthesis.6 

e  Pp.  23-24. 


232  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

There  will  be  found  readers  to  prefer  this  passage  of 
reminiscent  sentiment  to  the  more  involved  and  elaborate 
disquisitions  of  "A  Small  Boy  and  Others."  Like  the 
rest  of  the  novel,  it  has  escaped  that  revision  which  was 
the  price  exacted  for  admission  to  the  canon.  The  whole 
narrative  wears  the  same  old-fashioned  garb  in  which  it 
first  appeared.  And  it  is  for  once  a  piece  of  good  luck 
not  to  have  had  the  language  brought  up  to  date.  There 
is  a  certain  quaintness  of  formality  about  the  expression 
that  is  entirely  in  keeping  with  the  general  tone  of  the 
book.  Anyone  reading  it  in  the  edition  of  1881,  published 
by  Harpers,  and  illustrated  by  George  Du  Maurier,  will 
take  pleasure  in  the  suitability  of  the  drawings  to  the  style 
of  the  text.  There  is  a  distinction,  as  well  as  the  quaint- 
ness,  about  them  both,  which  does  justice  to  the  subject 
I  cannot  believe  that  the  lovers  of  James  will  allow  this 
story  to  sink  into  the  oblivion  to  which  the  author  con 
signed  it.  It  is  anything  but  a  good  example  of  the 
method  which  he  later  made  so  much  his  own.  But  it  is 
a  charming  memento  of  a  phase  through  which  he  passed 
on  the  way  to  his  more  distinctive  performance. 


IV 
ACHIEVEMENT:  THE  SPOILS  OF  POYNTON 

The  first  absolutely  pure  example  of  the  James  method 
was  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton,"  published  in  1896.  This 
book  has  all  the  "marks."  And  as  no  novel  before  it  had 
shown  so  many  of  the  distinctive  traits  in  such  perfection, 
in  none  had  they  been  blent  so  closely,  so  as  to  work 
together  and  reinforce  one  another.  Nowhere  in  his 
earlier  writing  does  the  "figure  in  the  carpet"  come  out 
so  distinct,  simple  and  entire. {^The  "idea"  stands  without 
rival  as  a  means  of  bringing  out  the  varying  qualities  of 
subjective  experienceTJ  In  showing  the  attitudes  of  differ- 
ent  people  towards  precious  "Things,"  the  gamut  is  run 
through  all  degrees  from  mere  undiscerning  vulgarity  up 
to  the  finest  spiritual  insight.  The  idea  is  made  admirably 
concrete,  converted  beautifully  into  "picture,"  in  the 
particular  question  of  the  "Spoils,"  which  make  here  the 
touchstone  of  character.  But  if  the  central  subject  of  the 
picture  is  Poynton  and  the  Spoils,  the  author  realized 
that  he  must  have  for  interpreter  some  being  more  con 
scious  and  articulate;  and  he  chose  for  this  the  person 
most  capable  of  appreciating  the  idea.  Never  before  had 
he  managed  so  happily  this  difficult  business ;  never  before 
had  he  kept  so  strictly  within  the  limits  of  the  chosen 
consciousness.  But  it  is  perhaps  most  of  all  in  the 
dialogue,  linked  together  by  the  unfailing  participation 
of  Fleda,  that  one  feels  the  break  with  the  earlier  man 
ner:  a  dialogue  so  little  discursive,  confining  itself  so 


234  The  Method  of  Henry  James 


strictly  to  the  matter  ir^  hand,  and  in  regard  to  this  so 
tirelessly  inquisitive,  so  finespun  and  close-wrought. 

The  great  point  is  that,  for  the  first  time  in  a  story 
of  this  length,  James  was  confining  himself  rigorously 
to  the  matter  in  hand,  content  to  forego  all  other  sources 
of  entertainment,  determined  to  seek  all  variety  within 
the  theme  itself.  For  the  first  time  he  was  breaking 
completely  with  the  tradition  of  the  English  novel,  which 
had  been  made  to  relate  so  much  that  was  irrelevant,  to 
provide  so  copious  and  miscellaneous  a  banquet. 

The  question  naturally  arises  as  to  how  he  came  at  this 
particular  moment  to  make  the  plunge,  as  to  why  matu 
rity  of  method  appears  so  suddenly  with  "The  Spoils 
of  Poynton."  In  considering  this  question  we  have  to 
take  into  account  the  fact  that  James  was  a  writer  of 
short  stories  as  well  as  of  novels.  Indeed,  at  the  time 
when  he  wrote  "Poynton,"  he  had  produced  nothing  but 
short  stories  for  more  than  half  a  dozen  years.  "Poyn- 
ton"  is  itself,  for  that  matter,  a  very  short  novel.  It  is 
not  twice  as  long  as  "The  Turn  of  the  Screw."  It  is 
only  about  half  the  length  of  "Roderick  Hudson"  and 
one-third  that  of  "The  Tragic  Muse." 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  the  short  story  is  nothing  with 
out  the  benefit  of  concentration  and  elimination.  There 
is  no  room  for  copiousness  and  variety.  There  is  no 
room  for  a  shifting  point  of  view,  for  discursive  dialogue, 
for  the  elaboration  of  anything  but  the  matter  in  hand. 
And  so  it  is  natural  that  James  should  have  arrived  first 
in  the  short  story  at  the  economy  and  intensiveness  of 
treatment  which  became  his  ideals  for  the  novel  as  well. 
This  was  actually  the  case;  and  short  stories  like  "The 
Altar  of  the  the  Dead"  (1895),  "The  Pupil"  and  "The 
Chaperon"  (both  1891),  we  may  regard  in  the  light  of 


Achievement:  The  Spoils  of  Poynton  235 


exercises  in  preparation  for  "The  Awkward  Age"  and 
"The  Golden  Bowl." 

All  the  more  so  as  the  short  stories  of  James,  like  his 
novels,  even  more  than  the  earlier  novels,  tend  to  sub 
ordinate  narrative  proper  to  human  portraiture.  As  he 
puts  it  himself  in  one  of  his  prefaces,  "A  short  story,  to 
my  sense  and  as  the  term  is  used  in  magazines,  has  to 
choose  between  being  either  an  anecdote  or  a  picture 
and  can  play  its  part  strictly  according  to  its  kind.  I 
rejoice  in  the  anecdote,  but  I  revel  in  the  picture."  And 
then  he  goes  on  to  explain  the  points  of  a  good  picture  in 
terms  strongly  suggesting  the  technique  of  the  later 
novels,  dwelling  on  that  "true  grave  close  consistency 
in  which  parts  hang  together  even  as  the  interweavings 
of  a  tapestry."1  While  the  earlier  novels  tend  likewise 
to  show  as  pictures,  it  is  pictures  with  a  larger,  looser 
composition  than  the  short  story  can  ever  allow  itself. 

If  then  we  suppose  that  the  author  of  "Poynton"  began 
with  the  intention  of  writing  a  short  story,  and  that  it 
simply  expanded  beyond  the  compass  of  that  form,  we 
understand  how  he  first  came  to  realize  fully  in  the  longer 
form  the  "true  grave  close  consistency"  natural  to  the 
briefer.  And  this  supposition  we  find  confirmed  when 
we  turn  to  the  preface  and  read  that  "Poynton"  was 
intended  to  complete  a  trio  of  short  stories  of  which  two 
members  had  already  appeared  in  the  "Atlantic."  Mr. 
James  is  rather  amusing  in  his  account  of  the  "editorial 
ruefulness"  over  the  embarrassing  amplitude  taken  on  by 
a  story  confidently  expected  to  be  short.2  This  subject 
simply  proved  to  be  larger  than  it  first  appeared.  It  de 
clined  to  be  treated  as  a  hint,  an  aspect,  an  episode.  How 
ever  limited  the  number  of  characters,  it  insisted  on  being 

1  Vol.  X,  p.  xxiv. 

2  Id.,  p.  x. 


236  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

treated  as  the  record  of  a  life,  the  history  of  a  soul.  It 
was  no  doubt  the  mental  capacity  of  Fleda  Vetch  that  was 
responsible  for  this  expansion.  Without  her  interpreta 
tion  the  circumstances  might  have  done  well  for  a  short 
story ;  without  this,  the  thing  would  be  an  anecdote.  But 
without  her  interpretation  we  can  hardly  conceive  it  as 
a  James  story  of  any  length. 

If  it  was  by  accident,  as  it  were,  that  James  came  to 
extend  to  the  novel  certain  articles  of  method  already 
applied  in  the  short  story,  there  is  little  doubt  that  he 
realized  at  once  what  had  happened  and  how  much  it 
made  for  his  "game."  It  is  certain  that  he  never  yielded 
an  inch  of  the  ground  he  had  gained.3  In  the  following 
years  the  same  method  was  applied  in  the  still  longer 
stories  of  "What  Maisie  Knew"  and  "The  Awkward 
Age,"  and  so  without  a  break  in  the  full-length  two-vol 
ume  novels  of  his  final  period.  And  thus  it  was  the  short 
story  helped  him  to  full  possession  and  mastery  of  his 
method  in  the  novel. 

3  We  have  to  make  an  exception  of  "The  Other  House,"  writ 
ten  immediately  after  "Poynton"  in  1896.  This,  as  we  have  seen 
in  the  chapter  on  "Drama,"  is  a  very  special  case.  James  refers 
slightingly  to  it  in  the  preface  to  Vol.  X,  p.  xi,  giving  the  impres 
sion  that  it  was  written  hurriedly  and  without  enthusiasm. 


V 
TECHNICAL  EXERCISES 

So  far  from  being  unaware  of  what  he  had  done  in 
"The  Spoils  of  Poynton,"  one  may  observe  in  James,  in 
the  half  dozen  years  that  followed,  a  rather  acute  con 
sciousness  of  his  momentous  discovery.  He  shows  a 
disposition  to  make  the  most  of  it,  to  push  to  its  furthest 
limits  the  technique  he  had  acquired  by  dint  of  such  long- 
continued  practice  and  exploration.  The  novels  of  this 
period,  taken  as  a  whole,  give  the  impression  of  being, 
to  a  considerable  extent,  technical  exercises.  They  are 
not  experiments  towards  a  method,  like  the  works  dis 
cussed  in  Chapter  III,  like,  for  that  matter,  all  the  novels 
turned  out  before  "Poynton."  The  several  points  of  the 
method  are  now  well  understood  and  established  as  defi 
nite  rules  of  procedure.  These  books,  written  at  the 
height  of  the  author's  self-consciousness,  are  rather 
experiments  with  a  method.  He  wants  to  put  it  through 
its  paces,  to  draw  out  all  its  latent  possibilities,  to  make 
application  of  it  in  ways  the  most  curious  and  recherche. 
It  is  accordingly  not  surprising  that  he  impresses  one  as 
taken  up  with  his  technique  almost  more  than  with  his 
subject,  and  that  some  at  least  of  the  novels  of  this  period 
strike  the  reader — that  one  of  them  apparently  struck 
James  himself — as  technical  excesses. 

The  works  in  question  are  "What  Maisie  Knew,"  "The 
Awkward  Age"  and  "The  Sacred  Fount,"  the  first  mak 
ing  its  appearance  in  1897,  the  last  in  1901.  In  connec 
tion  with  "The  Awkward  Age,"  we  can  most  conveniently 


238  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

discuss  "The  Outcry,"  the  last  of  all  the  novels  of  James,1 
much  later  in  date  but  showing  a  second  application  of 
the  same  technical  device. 

(a)     What  Maisie  Knew 

"What  Maisie  Knew"  is  most  remarkable  technically, 
as  we  have  seen,  for  the  consistency  with  which  the  point 
of  view  is  limited  to  the  consciousness  of  a  young  girl 
without  preventing  us  from  following  a  story  full  of 
incident  and  human  nature  ;far  beyond  the  comprehension 
of  a  child.  There  is  no  doubt  of  the  success  with  which 
James  carries  out  the  difficult  program  he  sets  himself 
in  this  book.  We  have  no  trouble  following  the  story 
of  Maisie's  perverse  parents  and  her  misguided  step 
parents.  We  never  call  in  question  the  truth  of  Maisie's 
experience,  either  as  to  the  facts  or  as  to  her  rather 
uncanny  understanding  of  them.  The  whole  situation  is 
reproduced  by  the  author's  imagination  with  a  fidelity  to 
life  and  a  vividness  of  realization  possible  only  to  high 
poetic  genius. 

And  yet  we  cannot  feel  that  this  is  one  of  the  most 
important  humanly  of  the  novels  of  James.  And  when 
we  seek  for  the  grounds  of  this  persuasion,  we  find  them 
in  the  very  limitations  entailed  by  this  technically  so 
fascinating  program.  The  choice  of  Maisie  for  the 
"register"  of  these  occurrences  makes  impossible  the 
rendering  of  their  real  significance, — their  significance 
either  for  the  grown-up  persons  taking  part,  or  their 
significance  (if  this  might  be  distinguished  from  the 
other)  for  an  author  more  coolly  aware  of  the  broad 

1  That  is,  the  last  complete  novel,  and  the  last  to  be  published 
during  his  lifetime. 


Technical  Exercises  239 

moral  bearings  of  what  is  done  and  suffered.  Only  in  the 
concluding  scenes  do  we  have  any  approach  to  an  ade 
quately  interpretative  record  of  events  as  they  affect  the 
principal — the  grown-up — participants.  And  do  we,  on 
the  other  hand,  have  the  story  of  Maisie  herself  ?  Maisie 
herself  has  really  no  story.  She  is  hardly  more  than  an 
observer  eagerly  following  from  her  side-box  the  enthrall 
ing  spectacle  of  the  stage.  And  while,  like  any  preco 
cious  child,  she  takes  in  much  more  of  the  spectacle  than 
her  elders  had  reckoned  on,  she  really  does  not  under 
stand  what  she  sees,  in  at  all  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
meant  by  the  grown-ups.  She  takes  great  pride  in  letting 
it  be  seen  how  much  she  "knows,"  and  Mrs.  Wix  and 
Sir  Claude  are  actually  "taken  in"  by  what  seems  to  be 
her  eventual  development  of  a  "moral  sense"  like  their 
own.  But  we  are  not  taken  in:  we  realize  that,  so  far 
as  the  moral  sense  they  have  in  mind  is  concerned,  she 
has  not  the  elementary  knowledge  on  which  it  must  be 
grounded;  and  if  she  says  the  right  words  at  the  right 
time,  that  is  because  she  is  the  cleverest  of  little  parrots, 
much  concerned  to  maintain  her  professional  reputation 
for  knowingness.  Her  mental  process,  thanks  to  the 
author's  conscientious  regard  for  truth,  remains  that  of  a 
child;  and  for  that  very  reason  the  book  cannot  carry 
the  weight  carried  by  those  in  which  we  are  invited  to 
follow  the  mental  process  of  a  Fleda  Vetch  or  an  Isabel 
Archer.  So  that  we  have  adequately  rendered  in  "Maisie" 
neither  a  story  nor  a  serious  subjective  experience. 

What  is  rendered,  and  with  the  surest  art,  is  always 
the  irony  and  the  pathos  of  Maisie's  connection  with 
the  ugly  circumstances  of  the  history.  Maisie's  extreme 
knowingness  is  never  so  great  as  to  prevent  her  from 
passing  comments  that  show  her  profound  ignorance 


240  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

of  the  troublesome  ways  of  sex  and  of  the  rules  laid 
down  by  grown-ups  for  the  better  regulation  of  the  game. 
Nothing  is  more  touching  than  her  eagerness  to  claim 
responsibility  for  the  vulgar  relation  of  her  step-parents. 
She  is  always  reminding  Sir  Claude  and  Mrs.  Beale  that 
it  was  Maisie  who  brought  them  together.2  By  this  means 
she  is  underlining  for  the  author  the  inherent  irony  of 
the  whole  situation,  and  adding  one  more  irony,  that  of 
her  own  naive  joy  in  the  loves  of  the  two  step-parents 
for  whom  she  has  so  much  affection.  The  very  summit 
of  heaped-up  ironies  is  reached  in  the  attempt  of  the 
childish  Mrs.  Wix  to  inoculate  the  poor  little  creature 
with  a  "moral  sense."  Like  everybody  else,  she  wishes 
Maisie  to  know  as  little  as  possible  of  men  and  women 
and  the  social  laws  governing  their  relations,  and  at  the 
same  time  expects  her  instinctively  to  condemn  any  in 
fringement  of  the  said  conventions.  What  renders  most 
amusing  the  long  arguments  with  Mrs.  Wix  as  to  the 
"freedom"  of  Sir  Claude  and  Mrs.  Beale  to  live  together 
is  Maisie's  anxiety  not  to  appear  "simple."3  As  for 
pathos,  everything  conspires  to  make  touching  the  situa 
tion  of  little  orphaned,  bewildered  Maisie,  called  upon 
so  early,  and  with  such  entire  want  of  proper  instruction, 
to  grapple  with  problems  much  too  hard  even  for  her 
elders.  She  cannot  understand  why  Mrs.  Beale  must  be 
branded  as  bad.  "She's  beautiful  and  I  love  her!  I 
love  her  and  she's  beautiful!"  Mrs.  Wix  cannot  make 
her  see  how  the  relation  is  made  more  vulgar  when  one 
of  the  persons  involved  gives  money  to  the  other.  That 
would  seem  to  her  to  indicate  simply  the  generosity  of 
the  one  who  pays.  And  then  if  Sir  Claude  does  pay 

2  See,  for  example,  p.  64  (Vol.  XI). 

3  P.  287.  • 


Technical  Exercises 


Mrs.  Beale  as  the  Countess  pays  her  father,  isn't  it  equally 
true  that  Mrs.  Wix  herself  receives  her  wages  from  Sir 
Claude? 

"Then  doesn't  he  pay  you  too?"  her  unhappy  charge 
demanded.  At  this  she  bounded  in  her  place.  "Oh  you 
incredible  little  waif  !"  She  brought  it  out  with  a  wail  of 
violence;  after  which,  with  another  convulsion,  she 
marched  straight  away. 

Maisie  dropped  back  on  the  bench  and  burst  into  sobs.4 

If  we  need  any  further  assurance  that  Maisie  is  actually 
a  little  girl  it  is  in  the  proof  she  offers,  the  very  next  day, 
of  her  Tightness  of  feeling.  If  she  thought  Mrs.  Beale 
was  unkind  to  Sir  Claude,  she  could  think  of  one  thing 
she  would  do  in  the  premises.  She'd  kill  her,  says  Maisie. 
"That  at  least,  she  hoped,  would  guarantee  her  moral 
sense."5 

Apart  from  this  tangled  web  of  perplexities,  the  story 
of  Maisie  is  crowded  with  appeal  the  most  simply  human. 
Maisie  is  a  little  girl  no  less  charming  than  she  is  real, 
beautiful  in  the  desperation  with  which  her  affection 
clings  to  a  father  and  mother  whom  everybody  agrees  to 
condemn,  as  well  as  in  her  loyalty  to  those  who  have 
shown  themselves  more  worthy  of  her  love.  It  is  clear 
that  the  author  has  a  regular  tendre  for  this  daughter  of 
his  fancy.  It  is  a  feeling  strong  enough  to  shake  him  out 
of  his  editorial  reserve  for  once  and  bring  him  right  up 
with  the  first  person  singular  and  the  sign  of  exclamation. 
"Oh,  decidedly,"  he  exclaims  at  a  certain  juncture,  "I 
shall  never  get  you  to  believe  the  number  of  things  she 

*  P.  277. 
B  P.  288. 


2  42  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

saw  and  the  number  of  secrets  she  discovered  !"6  James 
has  so  thoroughly  identified  himself  with  the  little  lady — 
for  she  is  a  lady! — that  he  reproduces  for  us  the  very 
air  of  wonder  with  which  all  persons  and  things  are 
invested  by  the  large  round  eyes  of  childhood.  We 
lose  with  him  and  Maisie  the  sense  of  proportion  that 
for  grown  people  makes  distinction  between  the  big  and 
the  little,  and  everything  seen  is  seen  in  all  the  importance 
and  intensity,  all  the  thrilling  immediacy,  of  a  child's 
vision.  It  would  take  us  much  too  far  if  I  should  yield 
to  my  desire  to  review  the  good  things  in  the  history  of 
Maisie.  I  must  be  content  to  remind  the  reader  of  but 
one  occasion,  that  on  which  she  and  Sir  Claude  were  tak 
ing  tea  and  buns  at  "a  pi  ,ce  in  Baker  Street,"  when, 
at  the  time  of  reckoning,  :>ir  Claude  too  thoughtlessly 
assumed,  and  aloud  so  as  t<~-  be  overheard  by  the  waitress, 
that  Maisie  had  been  capable  of  consuming  no  less  than 
five  buns.  Sir  Claude  was  evidently  unaware  of  the 
proprieties  in  these  things,  but  Maisie  was  only  too 
acutely  aware  of  them.  "  'How  can  you?'  Maisie  de 
manded,  crimson  under  the  eye  of  the  young  woman  who 
had  stepped  to  their  board.  Tve  had  three.'  "7 

But  however  many  good  things  there  may  be  in 
"Maisie,"  and  however  true  to  life,  the  leading  impres 
sion  made  by  the  book  is  still  that  of  the  author's  clever 
ness  in  the  working  out  of  his  scheme.  Every  time 
Maisie  comes  up  with  another  of  her  blessed  naive  re 
marks,  every  time  her  inevitable  incredible  simplicity  sets 
off  like  red  fire  the  irony  of  the  situation  in  its  newest 
turn,  we  feel — well,  we  feel  like  spectators  present  at  the 
setting  off  of  some  ingenious  feu  d'artifice. 

«  P.  205. 
7  P.  116. 


Technical  Exercises  243 


(b)     The  Awkward  Age 

Still  more  formidable  an  undertaking,  technically, 
was  "The  Awkward  Age," — a  kind  of  triple  exercise, 
one  gathers,  in  idea,  dialogue  and  point  of  view.  The 
theme  of  the  book  was  "the  difference  made  in  certain 
friendly  houses  and  for  certain  flourishing  mothers  by 
the  .  .  .  coming  to  the  forefront  of  some  vague  slip  of 
a  daughter,"8  the  difference,  namely,  in  the  character  of 
the  fireside  talk,  which  had  been  more  free  in  its  range 
than  is  compatible  with  the  presence  of  the  jeune  fille. 
Of  course  this  abstract  tht  ne  must  be  dramatized;  there 
must  be  characters,  a  plot;  fand  above  all  dialogue.  Mr. 
James  explains  the  design  j&pon  which  he  worked  in  this 
matter,  taking  for  his  rri '...del  the  clever  dialogues  of 
"Gyp,"  reducing  explanations  to  the  minimum,  and  un 
dertaking  to  produce  a  novel  nearly  as  objective  as  a  play. 
This  proved  to  be  something  of  a  mistake.  The  American 
author  overlooked  the  enormous  difference  between  his 
material  and  that  of  his  French  model,  who  is  a  mere 
witty  parrot  of  external  "manners."  These  are  indeed 
capable  of  being  rendered  in  simple  dialogue;  which  is 
obviously  not  true  of  the  intricate  human  relations  in 
volved  in  a  story  like  "The  Awkward  Age." 

We  have  glanced  in  an  earlier  chapter  at  the  objectivity 
of  view  here  cultivated  by  James.  He  had  confined 
himself,  for  the  fun  of  it,  to  the  "scene"  pure  and  simple. 
He  would  never  undertake  to  give  us  any  information 
even  as  to  the  present  scene  other  than  what  the  partici 
pants  shared  or  what  might  have  been  gathered  by  a 
"supposititious  spectator,"  "an  observer  disposed  to  inter- 

8  Vol.  IX,  p.  vi. 


244  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

pret  the  scene."9  If  he  has  frequent  resort  to  such  a 
spectator,  by  this  very  confession  of  weakness,  as  he 
might  put  it,  he  is  calling  attention  to  the  rigor  of  his 
self-restraint.  The  point  is  that,  while  he  is  willing  to 
let  us  know  everything  that  actually  becomes  apparent 
during  a  particular  scene,  he  is  steadfastly  refusing  to 
"go  behind"  the  appearances.  His  self-denial  is  some 
times  set  in  higher  relief  by  his  putting  his  reading  of 
appearances  in  the  interrogative  form,  as  not  wishing  to 
take  responsibility  for  anything  beyond  the  scope  of  the 
eyes.  "Mr.  Longdon  looked  the  noble  lady  .  .  .  straight 
in  the  face,  and  who  can  tell  whether  or  no  she  acutely 
guessed  from  his  expression  that  he  recognised  this  par 
ticular  junction  as  written  on  the  page  of  his  doom?"10 

That  these  devices  are  deliberate  and  that  the  author 
takes  pride  in  the  technical  ingenuity  thus  displayed  is 
evident  at  every  turn.  It  will  suffice  to  repeat  his  boast 
on  one  occasion — for  it  amounts  to  a  boast — that  "as  Mr. 
Van  himself  couldn't  have  expressed  at  any  subsequent 
time  to  any  interested  friend  the  particular  effect  upon 
him  of  the  tone  of  these  words  his  chronicler  takes 
advantage  of  the  fact  not  to  pretend  to  a  greater  intelli 
gence — to  limit  himself  on  the  contrary  to  the  simple 
statement  that  they  produced  in  Mr.  Van's  cheek  a  flush 
just  discernible."11 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  narrative,  as  James  intended, 
is  pretty  closely  confined  to  what  is  said,  and  indications 
of  the  manner  in  which  remarks  are  delivered  and 
received  are  not  so  much  more  frequent  than  in  the 

9  Pp.  323  and  130,  respectively.  The  word  spectator  recurs  on 
pp.  149,  215,  229,  317,  319,  400,  424,  449;  the  word  observer,  or 
something  to  the  same  effect,  on  142,  238,  269,  310,  319,  344. 

i«  P.  234. 

11  Pp.  211-212. 


Technical  Exercises  245 

characteristic  play  of  the  present  time.  Among  the  many 
other  suggestions  of  dramatic  technique  is  the  care  with 
which  the  author  designates  the  positions  of  his  actors  on 
the  stage.  This  is  most  called  for  of  course  in  scenes 
taking  in  a  considerable  number  of  characters,  like  the 
critical  scene  at  Mrs.  Grendon's.  There  we  read  at  one 
point  that  "the  new  recruits  to  the  circle,  Tishy  and 
Nanda  and  Mr.  Cashmore,  Lady  Fanny  and  Harold  .  .  . 
ended  by  enlarging  it,  with  mutual  accommodation  and 
aid,  to  a  pleasant  talkative  ring.  .  .  .  Tishy  was  nearest 
Mr.  Longdon,  and  Nanda,  still  flanked  by  Mr.  Cash- 
more,  between  that  gentleman  and  his  wife,  who  had 
Harold  on  her  other  side.  Edward  Brookenham  was 
neighboured  by  his  son  and  by  Vanderbank.  .  .  ,"12 

By  such  means  James  has  provided  well  for  the  objec 
tivity,  the  plastic  realism  of  the  scene.  But  anyone  famil 
iar  with  the  kind  of  ideas  which  it  is  his  wont  to  convey, 
with  the  intense  subjectivity  of  his  present  theme,  will 
realize  the  enormous  effrontery  of  his  undertaking  to  con 
vey  it  in  a  vehicle  so  limited.  All  the  more  so  as  James 
did  not  call  to  his  help  certain  of  the  devices  still  open  to 
him,  such  as  that  of  the  confidante.  There  is  here  no 
Maria  Gostrey,  no  Mrs.  Assingham,  to  add  her  outside 
interpretation  of  the  situation  to  that  vouchsafed  in  the 
talk  of  the  characters  most  involved.  It  is  true  that  the 
later  scenes,  in  the  usual  manner  of  James,  throw  light  at 
last  upon  the  earlier  ones.  But  it  is  a  long  wait  from  the 
sixth  book  to  the  ninth — so  long  one  must  stay  for  an 
explanation  of  the  policy,  and  so  of  the  character,  of 
Mrs.  Brook. 

We  are  dealing  here  with  people  whose  motives 
are,  if  possible,  still  further  removed  from  the  ordinary 

12  Pp.  423-424. 


246  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

than  is  usual  in  James,  and  who  are  at  any  rate  still 
more  sensitive  than  usual  to  the  imputation  of  vul 
garity.  There  is  one  anxious  moment  in  which  Mrs. 
Brook,  whose  own  temptation  is  the  strongest  of  any  of 
them,  exclaims  to  Vanderbank,  "Let  us  not,  for  God's 
sake,  be  vulgar — we  haven't  yet,  bad  as  it  is,  come  to 
that"13  And  there  are  perhaps  a  dozen  places  in  which 
the  various  members  of  her  circle  show  their  horror  of 
this  contingency.14  Vanderbank  assures  her  that  she  is 
quite  free  from  vulgarity.  "Oh,  I  know  that  there  are 
things  you  don't  put  to  me!"  If  not  putting  things  to 
one  another  is  what  constitutes  refinement,  it  is  obvious 
how  little  light  there  can  be  for  the  reader  in  the  talk 
of  people  who  are  never  vulgar.  If  it  were  not  for  the 
occasional  running  amuck  of  the  Duchess — a  foreign 
Duchess,  bien  entendu — we  should  be  left  indeed  in  dark 
ness. 

But  not  merely  are  the  motives  of  a  strangeness,  and 
strangely  veiled  by  the  requirements  of  good  taste,  they 
are,  when  we  take  into  account  the  whole  story,  combined 
in  a  pattern  whose  complexity  contributes  greatly  to  our 
bewilderment.  It  is  not  only  Mrs.  Brook  who  can  boast 
a  strategy,  in  her  admirable  cause  of  keeping  together 
her  "saloon,"  maintaining  her  "intellectual  habits,"  and 
at  the  same  time  providing  for  her  difficult  daughter  and 
so  confounding  the  theories  of  the  Duchess.  It  turns 
out  the  difficult  daughter  has  a  strategy,  if  you  please, 
as  fine  and  as  complicated  as  her  mother's  and  not  over 
looking  the  disposition  of  her  mother,  either,  after  she 
has  duly  disposed  of  Mitchy  and  Aggie,  of  the  Grendons 
and  the  Cashmeres,  and  of  Mr.  Longdon.  It  is  like  one 

13  P.  446. 

14  For  example,  pp.  323,  329,  339,  430,  460. 


Technical  Exercises  247 


of  those  games  with  blocks  so  appealing  to  youngsters, 
in  which,  piece  by  piece,  one  structure  is  taken  down  and 
a  new  structure  set  up  accounting  exactly  for  every  block 
taken  from  the  first.  If  Nanda  takes  Mitchy  from  her 
mother's  coterie,  she  makes  it  up  by  restoring  "Aggie," 
who  is  a  still  better  subject  for  her  mother's  genius.  If 
she  deprives  Mitchy  of  the  hope  of  having  herself  for 
wife,  she  makes  it  up  to  him  by  establishing  herself  in 
the  still  more  interesting  relation  of  counsellor  and  friend. 
If  she  proves  totally  unable  to  sustain  comparison  with 
her  admired  grandmother,  that  turns  out  to  be  the  very 
tie  that  attaches  most  closely  to  her  the  grandmother's 
worshipper  and  his  fortune.  And  it  is  beautiful  to  see 
how  in  these  evolutions,  and  in  others  too  numerous  to 
mention,  Nanda  and  her  mother  seem  to  work  together, 
without  communication,  to  an  end  equally  satisfactory 
to  both.  It  is  true  that  Nanda  cannot  have  the  man  she 
loves.  But  that  somehow  seems  to  have  been  ruled  out 
from  the  start ;  Nanda  declares  herself  to  be  one  of  those 
strange  creatures  who  "positively  like  to  love  in  vain."15 
The  great  thing  appears  to  be,  not  to  have  everyone 
happy — that  is  perhaps  too  absurdly  vulgar — but  to  have 
every  one  "squared."16  But  it  might  give  an  idea  rather 
of  simplicity  than  of  complexity  if  I  dwelt  too  heavily 
upon  this  reversed  pattern  of  the  plot  and  the  relations 
of  Nanda  and  Mrs.  Brook.  These  are  great  strategists ; 
but  the  reader  has  to  reckon  also  with  the  Duchess,  and 
with  the  unknown  quantities  represented  by  Mitchy  and 
Vanderbank  and  Mr.  Longdon. 

And  the  worst  of  it  is  that,  among  all  these  competitors, 
the  reader  is  at  a  loss  to  know  where  to  invest  his  sympa- 

"  P.  359. 

1<}.For  example,  pp.  523,  525. 


248  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

thies.  This  is  an  almost  fatal  oversight  in  a  novel,  not  to 
give  the  reader  better  direction.  It  arises  here,  I  think, 
from  the  author's  preoccupation  with  technique.  He  is 
so  largely  absorbed  in  his  game  of  illuminating  that  cen 
tral  idea  by  means  of  those  "lamps"  that  form  a  ring 
about  it.17  How  is  he  to  show  us  which  of  these  lamps 
to  take  for  our  guiding  star?  He  has  cut  himself  off 
from  his  usual  means  of  indicating  his  bias  by  the  choice 
of  a  personal  point  of  view.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
work  outgrew  his  original  intention,  as  he  tells  in  the 
preface.  From  a  series  of  illustrative  dialogues,  it  grew 
into  a  story.  But  the  author  seems  not  sufficiently  to 
have  realized  this  while  the  story  was  in  progress.  The 
subject  was  being  treated  minutely  and  to  his  satisfac 
tion;  and  the  subject  did  not  require  the  particular 
salience  of  one  or  a  small  number  of  characters.  But  the 
story  does  require  the  dominance  of  special  characters 
who  engage  our  interest.  And  in  "The  Awkward  Age" 
the  story  hardly  gets  itself  started  in  this  sense  before 
the  seventh  book.  Not  till  then  are  we  confident  that 
the  heroine  is  Nanda  Brookenham.  And  even  then  she 
does  not  continue  steadily  to  hold  the  center  of  the  stage. 
And  so  the  story  forfeits  that  intensity  of  appeal  which 
goes  with  our  special  concern  for  some  particular  person 
or  group.  It  fails  to  take  hold  of  us  emotionally.  We  are 
deeply  interested  through  our  intelligence,  our  curiosity. 
But  we  do  not  really  take  stock  in  these  people  as  human 
beings  laboring  under  the  strain  of  life.  We  are  not 
made  to  feel  how  much  they  care.  We  are  more  im 
pressed  with  their  self-consciousness, — the  pride  they 
take  in  being  "wonderful." 

Mr.  James  was  very  well  satisfied,  on  review,  with 

"  See  chapter  on  "Idea." 


Technical  Exercises  249 

his  work  in  this  book, — with  its  "exemplary  closeness," 
with  "the  quantity  of  meaning  and  the  number  of  inten 
tions,  the  extent  of  ground  for  interest,  as  I  may  call  it, 
that  I  have  succeeded  in  working  scenically,  yet  without 
loss  of  sharpness,  clearness  or  'atmosphere/  into  each 
of  my  illuminating  Occasions."18  And  he  was  quite  right. 
There  is  perhaps  no  novel  that  offers  greater  store  of 
satisfactions  to  any  reader  who  will  dig  for  them.  But 
we  cannot  regard  any  novel  as  supremely  good  in  which 
one  has  to  dig  so  for  what  one  gets,  and  where  one's 
satisfactions  are  so  often  in  the  recognition  of  the 
author's  cleverness.  James  takes  pride  in  the  fact  that 
one  cannot  distinguish,  in  this  book,  form  and  substance : 
it  is  impossible  to  say  "where  one  of  these  elements  ends 
and  the  other  begins."19  This  may  be  so:  but  with  the 
reader,  at  any  rate,  the  impression  that  remains  is  very 
largely  that  of  form;  not  form  without  substance,  but 
form  dominating  or  even  bullying  its  inseparable  twin. 

(c)     The  Outcry 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  once  again  before  he  laid 
down  his  pen  James  tried  his  hand  at  a  novel  written 
on  the  lines  of  a  play.  The  dramatic  form  is  even  more 
marked  in  "The  Outcry"  than  in  "The  Awkward  Age." 
The  three  parts  correspond  exactly  to  the  three  acts  of  a 
modern  play.  Each  part  rises  invariably  to  a  good  theat 
rical  climax  for  the  curtain.  The  scenes,  or  numbered 
sections,  are  distinguished  by  a  mere  variation  of  dra 
matis  persona  within  an  identical  setting,  certain  charac 
ters  giving  place  to  others  on  a  stage  that  is  never  left 
vacant.  And  objectivity  of  treatment  is  as  carefully 

18  P.  xxii. 

19  P.  xxii. 


250  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

maintained  as  in  "The  Awkward  Age,"  and  by  the  same 
devices.  In  this  case,  however,  the  dramatic  treatment 
is  perfectly  suited  to  the  subject-matter,  and  whether  as 
novel  or  play,  the  story  is  "got  across"  with  entire  suc 
cess.  In  each  act  there  is  something  at  issue  sufficiently 
objective  and  material  for  easy  presentation  on  the  stage. 
In  both  the  first  two,  indeed,  the  climax  consists  in 
nothing  less  stagey  than  a  quarrel  between  the  heroine 
and  her  father — in  one  case,  her  suitor  too — in  which 
she  flings  defiance  at  her  formidable  parent.  There  is, 
to  be  sure,  an  interesting  and  characteristic  theme,  relat 
ing  to  the  honorable  obligation  of  noble  families  who 
possess  great  art  treasures  not  to  let  them  be  lost  to 
their  country.  And  the  changes  are  rung  in  a  manner 
worthy  of  James  on  the  freakish  varieties  assumed  by 
the  sense  of  honor.  But  there  is  nothing  about  the  idea 
requiring  development;  there  is  no  occasion  for  a  close 
following  of  the  mental  evolutions  of  the  heroine.  As  a 
consequence,  the  story  is  at  once  much  more  successful 
and  much  less  important  than  "The  Awkward  Age." 
And  while  it  is  a  book  that  would  easily  get  itself  readers 
among  the  less  discerning,  its  interest  for  students  and 
devotees  of  James  is  almost  wholly  technical. 

(d)     The  Sacred  Fount 

We  cannot  be  sure  what  disposition  Mr.  James  would 
have  made  of  "The  Outcry"  had  it  been  in  print  at  the 
time  he  brought  his  stories  together.  "The  Sacred 
Fount"  we  know  he  rejected,  and  so  presumably  branded 
as  not  one  of  his  first-class  productions.  It  seems  not 
unlikely  that  this  judgment  was  based  on  some  feeling 
that  the  book  was  rather  too  simply  what  I  have  called 
a  technical  exercise.  It  is  much  more  simply  and  ob- 


Technical  Exercises 


viously  that  than  any  of  the  other  novels  I  have  dis 
cussed. 

It  is  an  extremely  interesting  idea  from  which  he  takes 
his  start,  and  one  that  no  doubt  corresponds  to  something 
profoundly  true  in  human  nature,  —  the  idea  that,  between 
man  and  woman,  one  party  to  the  relation  is  liable  to 
pay  for  the  happiness,  the  vitality,  the  efflorescence,  of 
the  other.  Every  human  relation,  it  may  be,  has  some 
what  the  character  of  a  struggle  for  life,  in  which  one 
gains  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  This  would  be  a  fact 
most  rich  in  material  for  drama,  for  tragedy  indeed  ;  and 
it  is  strange  that  not  more  has  been  made  of  it  in  the  type 
of  fiction  represented  by  the  novels  of  James.  But  true 
and  serious  as  was  his  subject-matter,  James  seems  for 
once  to  have  but  superficially  conceived  its  possibilities. 

Mr.  James  may  well  have  felt  that  he  was  here  be 
trayed  by  that  excessive  love  of  symmetrical  patterns 
in  the  disposition  of  his  human  units  that  is  so  constantly 
cropping  out,  especially  in  his  later  period.  It  was  this 
same  love  of  patterns  which  determined  the  complicated 
symmetries  and  coincidences  of  the  plot  of  "Maisie"; 
the  remarriage  of  both  unparental  parents,  the  love- 
affair  between  the  step-parents  thus  introduced,  the 
repeated  infidelity  of  the  original  guardians  of  Maisie, 
leaving  "free"  the  adoptive  guardians  to  pursue  their  own 
relation.  Maisie's  passion  for  "squaring"  everybody  — 
that  is,  for  disposing  happily  of  everybody  in  some  rela 
tion  that  restores  the  balance  of  love  and  self-respect  — 
corresponds  to  the  similar  sense  for  decent  equilibrium 
which  forms  the  excuse  of  Charlotte  and  Amerigo  in 
"The  Golden  Bowl."  We  have  seen  what  a  genius  for 
such  arrangements  was  Nanda  Brookenham's.  The  same 
instinct  for  patterns  —  and  for  shifting  patterns  —  is  shown 


252  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

in  the  reversal  of  the  roles  of  Chad  and  Strether  in  "The 
Ambassadors,"  which  is  so  neatly  and  thoroughly  worked 
out.  And  other  instances  may  occur  to  a  reader  suffi 
ciently  familiar  with  the  stories  of  James. 

In  the  case  of  "The  Sacred  Fount"  it  is  easy  to  follow 
the  process  of  growth  of  the  amazing  figure  from  the 
original  germ-idea.  We  are  present  at  a  week-end  party 
where,  by  assumption,  all  persons  concerned  in  the  psycho 
logical  problem  are  in  evidence.  We  have  had  enunciated 
the  principle  of  "the  sacred  fount,"  and  one  instance  is 
given  us  at  the  start,  involving  the  persons  A  and  B.  If 
the  principle  holds  for  one  couple,  why  not  for  another? 
X  is  to  Y  as  A  is  to  B.  We  observe  a  third  person  D 
who  exhibits  the  same  symptoms  as  B.  Only,  to  make  the 
pattern  more  interesting,  D  is  a  woman  where  B  is  a  man. 
It  is  naturally  a  principle  that  works  without  prejudice 
of  sex.  We  have  then  the  equation 

X  :D  ::A  :B 

A,  B  and  D  being  known  quantities,  what  is  X?  or,  in 
this  particular  equation,  who  is  X?  There  chance  to  be 
more  than  one  person  present  who  fill  the  conditions,  or 
at  least  two  opinions  prevail  as  to  which  person  fills  them 
best;  and  a  debate  ensues.  "I"  hold  a  brief  for  C,  and 
my  perfect  equation  reads 

C  :D  ::A  :B 

There  arise  several  minor  considerations  of  great  fas 
cination.  We  cannot  go  into  more  than  one  of  these. 
It  appears  that  B  and  D  are  involved  in  a  special  relation 
distinct  from  the  main  relation  of  each.  What  can  it  be 
but  that  of  two  persons  suffering  from  the  same  malady — 
two  persons  equally  drained  of  their  vitality  by  the  part- 


Technical  Exercises  253 

ner  who  draws  life  from  the  common  waters  of  the  sacred 
fount  ?  They  come  together  for  mutual  comfort.  Would 
it  not  be  natural,  then,  to  look  for  a  similar  connection 
between  A  and  C  ?  The  beneficiaries  of  the  relations  so 
damaging  to  B  and  D  may  be  expected  to  make  common 
cause  for  the  defense  and  disguisement  of  their  own 
position.  And  such  an  entente  seems  to  "me"  to  be 
actually  in  existence.  So  that  I  have  the  interesting 
secondary  equation, 

A  :C  ::B  :D 

And  according  to  my  psychologic  algebra,  the  demonstra 
tion  of  the  second  equation  is  a  further  confirmation  of 
the  first. 

But  I  have  not  been  allowed  to  carry  out  these  demon 
strations  without  vigorous  dispute.  For  there  has  been 
present  from  the  beginning  a  most  troublesome  compli 
cating  factor.  One  of  the  persons  to  the  debate  is  one 
of  the  "quantities"  of  my  equations ;  and  this  person  has 
excellent  reasons  for  denying  the  truth  of  my  contentions 
as  soon  as  she  realizes  where  they  are  leading  us.  So 
that  she  soon  begins  a  campaign  for  demolishing  the  facts 
on  which  I  base  my  contentions.  All  the  latter  part  of 
the  discussion  is  taken  up  with  the  presentation  of  evi 
dence  on  one  side  or  the  other  for  supporting  the  two 
rival  hypotheses.  A  bewildering  display  of  ingenuity 
accompanies  the  completion  of  the  two  perfect  and  corre 
sponding  structures  reared  by  the  two  debaters. 

Not  less  remarkable  than  the  fascination  of  this  game 
is  its  artificiality.  The  original  idea  has  been  entirely  lost 
sight  of  save  as  the  chess-board  on  which  Mrs.  Briss  and 
"I"  play  our  game.  There  has  been  no  real  study  of  the 
problem  in  human  relations  save  from  the  outside,  as 


254  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

regards  its  susceptibility  to  mathematical  manipulation. 
Of  course  it  is  inevitable  that  in  any  dialogue  of  James 
there  should  be  no  end  of  light  thrown  on  various  aspects 
of  human  nature.  But  it  must  have  been  as  clear  to  him 
as  it  is  to  his  readers  how  totally,  in  this  book,  he  failed 
to  develop  the  idea  of  the  "sacred  fount." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  readers  of  "The  Portrait"  and 
"The  Tragic  Muse,"  let  alone  "Daisy  Miller"  and  "The 
American,"  should  have  been  somewhat  taken  aback  by 
these  exhibitions  of  virtuosity  with  which  James  intro 
duced  his  latest  phase.  Many  would  have  found  fault, 
no  doubt,  even  had  it  been  "The  Ambassadors"  and 
"The  Golden  Bowl"  instead  of  "The  Awkward  Age" 
and  "The  Sacred  Fount."  But  their  objection  would 
then  have  been  the  result  of  that  conservatism  which 
demands  that  an  artist  continue  to  perform  the  tricks 
to  which  he  has  accustomed  the  public.  As  it  is,  they 
had  some  grounds  for  their  feeling  that  their  author  was 
growing  perverse  "in  his  old  age."  And  there  were  many 
who  never  outgrew  the  prejudice  thus  aroused,  in  spite 
of  the  beautiful  work  he  was  yet  to  offer. 


VI 
FULL  PRIME 

It  is  characteristic  of  James  that  his  best  work  of  all 
should  have  come  at  the  end  of  his  career.  His  was 
an  art  that  had  to  be  learned.  It  is  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  present  century  that  we  reach  the  period  of  his 
richest  self-expression.  Having  mastered  his  technique, 
having  done  with  experiments,  he  launches  at  last  upon 
that  series  of  novels  which  are  but  the  natural  and  seem 
ingly  unstudied  application  of  his  method,  and  the  best 
demonstration  of  its  possibilities  for  art. 

We  need  not  go  over  again  the  several  points  and 
show  how  they  are  applied  in  these  novels.  What  does 
invite  us  is  the  opportunity  of  remarking  on  the  beautiful 
fruits  of  this  method.  It  is  in  "The  Dove,"  "The  Am 
bassadors"  and  "The  Golden  Bowl"  that  we  taste  most 
those  esthetic  gratifications  which  only  such  a  system 
can  procure  us.  These  are  all  structures  of  generous 
dimensions;  and  they  are  in  no  case  overcrowded  with 
tenants,  who  have  thus  ample  room  to  turn  around  and 
ample  leisure  to  make  themselves  at  home.  In  other 
words,  the  process  of  selection  and  elimination  makes 
possible  the  fullest  and  most  faithful  treatment  of  what 
is  included.  The  central  idea  is  allowed  to  grow  as  steady 
and  unhampered  as  some  great  elm  in  New  England 
fields,  reaching  out  on  all  sides  to  the  sun,  and  showing 
at  last  dense- foliaged  and  round,  broad  and  symmetrical 
in  its  green  acre.  Each  particular  situation,  or  historical 


256  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

passage,  which  is  deemed  worthy  of  treatment  at  all, 
receives  the  same  full-rounded  development ;  each  process 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  characters,  chosen  for  illustra 
tion  or  for  intrinsic  interest,  is  followed  closely  from 
step  to  step  through  all  its  course  without  abruptness, 
haste  or  violence.  This  smooth  progress,  free  from  jolts 
and  jars,  is  a  marked  feature  of  the  work  of  James  in 
general,  distinguishing  it  from  the  type  of  fiction  that 
ministers  to  our  love  of  rapid  movement,  variety  and 
change.  James  has  naturally  a  predilection  for  slow 
movement,  inappreciable  change,  for  neat  articulation 
and  orderly  evolution.  He  prefers  likeness  to  difference, 
the  familiar  to  the  novel,  since  in  each  case  the  former 
has  actually  more  to  yield  to  the  understanding,  is  more 
readily  assimilated  and  made  a  part  of  one's  total  im 
pression. 

The  amplitude  of  the  record  gives  room  for  the 
carrying  out  of  those  large  operations,  or  manoeuvres, 
which  amount  to  nothing  less  than  a  revolution  in  some 
one's  life.  Such  an  operation  is  not  an  affair  like  going 
to  bed  or  taking  breakfast,  and  is  not  to  be  disposed  of 
in  any  light  and  cavalier  fashion.  It  is  a  matter  of  long 
preparation,  of  many  stages  both  in  conception  and  execu 
tion.  It  has  a  logic  and  a  sequence,  which  have  to  be 
followed  throughout.  In  no  part  of  James's  work  are 
there  such  fine  examples  of  these  operations  extensively 
carried  out  as  in  these  three  late  novels. 

There  is,  for  example,  that  of  Maggie  Verver  in  "The 
Golden  Bowl."  The  first  half  of  that  novel  sets  forth 
the  circumstances  by  which  is  built  up  the  strange  and 
wicked  balance  of  relations  which  groups  together  Mag 
gie's  husband  and  her  father's  wife.  The  second  half  is 
devoted  to  the  long  process  by  which  Maggie,  becoming 


Full  Prime 


aware  of  the  situation,  restores  the  proper  and  original 
balance,  and  so  wins  back  her  husband,  making  him 
hers  for  good.  The  earliest  hint  of  any  uneasiness  on 
Maggie's  part  is  given  just  before  the  beginning  of  the 
second  part  of  the  story  in  Mrs.  Assingham's  talk  with 
her  husband.  Mrs.  Assingham's  understanding  of  the 
situation  runs  far  ahead  of  Maggie's,  and  so  when  we 
come  to  Maggie's,  we  have  to  start  further  back  and 
follow  from  their  obscurest  beginnings  the  double  process 
of  her  growing  realization  and  her  groping  strategy.  In 
Maggie's  case  the  realization  of  evil  requires  a  large 
allowance  of  time  and  endless  rumination  before  it  can 
grow  complete  and  assured.  For  it  was  just  the  trait 
in  Maggie  that  she  could  not  and  would  not  conceive 
of  evil  that  provoked  the  situation  in  which  she  had  to 
deal  with  it.  So  that  with  her  the  light  breaks  very 
slowly;  she  will  not  let  it  come  by  more  than  gradual 
degrees. 

And  her  strategy  is  complicated  and  made  difficult  by 
the  character  of  her  adversaries  and  allies.  Amerigo 
and  Charlotte  are,  like  Maggie  herself,  persons  who  can 
not  tolerate  violence  and  vulgarity.  And  the  last  thing 
she  wishes  is  to  humiliate  either  of  them.  What  she 
wishes  is  to  give  them  full  opportunity  to  beat  an  honor 
able  retreat.  There  can  accordingly  be  none  of  those 
explosions  that  clear  the  air  and  advance  matters  by 
overleaping  stages.  No  one  gives  away  his  hand,  and 
in  every  contact  through  a  series  of  weeks,  each  party 
is  feeling  his  way  with  the  greatest  caution.  It  is  some 
time  before  Maggie  comes  to  understand  what  it  is  that 
her  husband  is  "growing  under  cover  of"  his  princely 
reserve.  What  he  is  growing  is  evidently  his  policy  of 
joining  forces  with  his  wife  by  keeping  Charlotte  in  the 


258  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

dark  as  to  Maggie's  discovery.  And  we  all  have  to  wait 
for  Charlotte  to  see  the  light.  It  is  long  before  she  does 
see  that  the  game  is  up  and  reconciles  herself  to  the 
necessity  for  exile.  It  needs  first  those  tense  scenes  of 
confrontation  with  Maggie,  in  which  the  latter,  all  gen 
erous  in  her  position  of  vantage,  gives  her  opponent  no 
hold  or  opening  for  attack. 

As  for  Mr.  Verver,  Maggie  has  at  first  no  idea  what 
he  knows.  Her  first  instinct  of  all  is  to  shield  him  from 
this  knowledge.  His  marriage  was  undertaken  with  the 
idea  of  leaving  his  daughter  freer  to  enjoy  her  husband ; 
and  Maggie  wouldn't  for  the  world  have  him  realize 
the  ironic  issue  of  this  undertaking.  It  turns  out  that 
Mr.  Verver's  chief  solicitude  is  similarly  to  shield  Maggie 
from  the  knowledge  of  his  suffering.  And  when  they  are 
both  morally  sure  of  the  full  enlightenment  of  one  an 
other,  their  delicacy  and  consideration  for  one  another's 
dignity  lead  them  to  continue  to  the  end  their  difficult 
policy  of  bluff. 

Meantime,  obscurely,  under  all  these  moves  and 
counter-moves,  is  growing  Amerigo's  appreciation  of 
Maggie.  And  this  is  given  ample  room  to  spread  and 
reach  the  stature  it  shows  at  the  final  curtain. 

Such  a  large  slow  evolution  again  is,  in  "The  Dove," 
the  process  by  which  Merton  Densher  gives  himself  up 
to  the  designs  of  Kate  upon  Milly,  wandering  farther 
and  farther  from  the  straight  way,  until  the  last  moment 
ous  visit  to  the  dying  woman,  where  comes  to  a  head 
the  slow  spirit  of  rebellion  against  a  sinister  manipula 
tion,  and  he  takes  the  sharp,  decisive  turn  back  to  truth 
and  decency.  We  need  not  trace  out  the  course  of  this 
operation  nor  of  that  other  performed  by  Strether  in 
"The  Ambassadors."  The  point  is  that  only  on  this 


Full  Prime  259 


method,  in  this  kind  of  novel,  is  it  possible  to  conceive  the 
execution  of  any  such  broad  continuous  figure.  It  is 
one  thing  to  say,  of  such  and  such  a  change  in  a  charac 
ter's  outlook,  that  it  came  about;  it  is  another  thing  to 
give  the  reader  the  impression  of  its  coming  about.  Every 
movement  of  the  plot  cries  out  for  elbow-room.  Each  plot 
as  a  whole  is  like  a  fleet  of  warships  demanding  large 
waters  in  which  to  form  and  reform  and  go  through  their 
wide-sweeping  manoeuvres. 

It  is  a  double  undertaking.  The  situations  must  be 
worked  out  completely  in  relation  to  the  idea  they  make 
palpable ;  and  they  must  be  completely  realized  in  scenes 
felt  as  real  and  particular  human  experience.  Here  again 
the  leisurely  fulness  of  treatment  makes  for  our  satis 
faction.  The  situations  grow  upon  us.  Familiarity  itself 
takes  hold  of  us;  and  we  are  further  convinced  by  the 
many  little  faithful  touches,  which  are  introduced  as 
quietly  as  in  life  itself. 

We  have  time  to  get  acquainted,  for  example,  with  the 
special  predicament  of  Maggie  Verver.  We  have  time  to 
sit  with  her  before  the  drawing-room  fire  on  that  crucial 
evening  when  she  waited  there  for  her  husband's  return 
from  Matcham.  By  her  coming  home  for  dinner  she  had 
intimated — oh,  so  gently! — that  the  shadow  of  a  change 
had  touched  her  spirit,  and  that  she  was  turning  over  a 
new  leaf  in  their  domestic  chronicle.  In  relations  so 
delicately  balanced  as  theirs,  even  so  slight  a  hint  was 
fraught  with  significance  and  peril;  and  we  are  made 
to  feel  the  varying  shades  of  trepidation  with  which  she 
watches  the  slow  hands  of  the  clock.  We  share  her  sense 
of  the  momentous  nature  of  the  "small  shades  of  decision" 
involved  in  her  having  left  no  message  for  Amerigo  in 
Eaton  Square,  her  having  dressed  for  dinner  on  coming 


260  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

in.  Most  convincing  is  the  touch  of  Maggie's  anxiety 
over  the  style  of  her  gown,  and  her  somewhat  extended 
reflections  upon  her  inability  really  to  satisfy  the  taste 
of  Charlotte  in  these  matters  of  dress.  "Yes,  it  was  one 
of  the  things  she  should  go  down  to  her  grave  without 
having  known — how  Charlotte,  after  all  had  been  said, 
really  thought  her  step-daughter  looked  under  any  sup 
posedly  ingenious  personal  experiment.  She  had  always 
been  lovely  about  the  step-daughter's  material  braveries — 
had  done  for  her  the  very  best  with  them;  but  there 
had  ever  fitfully  danced  at  the  back  of  Maggie's  head  the 
suspicion  that  these  expressions  were  mercies,  not  judg 
ments,  embodying  no  absolute  but  only  a  relative  frank 
ness."1  Of  course  we  need  no  reminder  that  this  critic 
before  whom  she  stands  in  awe  is  none  other  than  the 
woman  whom  she  is  beginning  to  suspect  of  having  ap 
propriated  the  love  of  her  husband;  and  we  realize 
accordingly  the  high  importance  of  these  sartorial  con 
siderations. 

Another  such  occasion,  to  cite  an  example  from  "The 
Ambassadors,"  is  that  in  which  Strether,  in  his  river-side 
pavilion,  becomes  aware  of  the  presence  of  Chad  and 
Madame  de  Vionnet  in  a  row-boat,  and  of  being  himself 
discovered  by  the  watchful  eye  of  Madame  de  Vionnet. 
It  takes  indeed  but  two  paragraphs  to  give  an  account  of 
the  moment  that  follows,  but  there  is  so  much  excitement 
crowded  into  this  one  moment  of  hesitation  and  suspense 
and  the  circumstances  are  so  vividly  imagined  that  we 
realize  it  as  a  complete  little  drama.  We  see  the  figures 
clearly  in  their  physical  relation  and  aspect, — Madame 
de  Vionnet  with  her  pink  parasol  shifted  as  if  to  hide  her 
face,  Chad  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  with  his  face  turned 

i  Vol.  XXIV,  pp.  13-14. 


Full  Prime  261 


away,  having  let  his  paddles  go  on  receiving  the  mute 
warning  of  his  companion,  and  poor  Strether  staring  pet 
rified  in  his  pavilion.  And  we  feel  the  tense  indecision 
of  the  two  in  the  boat,  the  horror  of  the  gentleman  on 
shore.  It  is  of  course  the  sensations  of  Strether  that 
make  the  scene  live. 

It  was  a  sharp  fantastic  crisis  that  had  popped  up  as  if 
in  a  dream,  and  it  had  had  only  to  last  the  few  seconds 
to  make  him  feel  it  as  quite  horrible.  They  were  thus, 
on  either  side,  trying  the  other  side,  and  all  for  some 
reason  that  broke  the  stillness  like  some  unprovoked 
harsh  note.  It  seemed  to  him  again,  within  the  limit, 
that  he  had  but  one  thing  to  do — to  settle  their  common 
question  by  some  sign  of  surprise  and  joy.  He  hereupon 
gave  large  play  to  these  things,  agitating  his  hat  and  his 
stick  and  loudly  calling  out — a  demonstration  that 
brought  him  relief  as  soon  as  he  had  seen  it  answered. 
The  boat,  in  mid-stream,  still  went  a  little  wild — which 
seemed  natural,  however,  while  Chad  turned  round,  half 
springing  up;  and  his  good  friend,  after  blankness  and 
wonder,  began  gaily  to  wave  her  parasol.  Chad  dropped 
afresh  to  his  paddles  and  the  boat  headed  round,  amaze 
ment  and  pleasantry  filling  the  air  meanwhile,  and  relief, 
as  Strether  continued  to  fancy,  superseding  mere 
violence.2 

In  comparison  with  such  work  the  narrative  method 
of  much  of  our  most-admired  fiction  seems  conventional 
and  superficial.  The  characters  are  but  lay-figures, 
hastily  furnished  with  cloaks  and  swords,  with  legs  and 
noses,  from  some  theatrical  wardrobe,  and  made  to  go 
through  certain  movements  which,  by  a  pious  convention 
and  the  indulgence  of  the  reader,  are  taken  to  mean 
action  and  emotion.  Each  situation  is  presented  in 
merest  outline,  with  no  attempt  at  filling  in  those  intimate 

2  Vol.  XXII,  pp.  257-258. 


262  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

touches  that  give  reality  to  any  situation  and  differentiate 
one  situation  from  another.  In  James,  we  have  the  pleas 
ure  of  seeing  the  figures  grow  and  fill  until  they  reach 
the  rounded  proportions  of  living  beings.  We  watch  the 
situation  opening  up,  depth  behind  depth,  with  calculated 
distances  and  objects  so  placed  as  to  give  a  sense  of  per 
spective.  Whatever  is  undertaken  is  done,  and  we  are 
satisfied. 

But  if  James  does  impress  us,  in  this  ultimate  work, 
with  his  adequacy  of  treatment  that  goes,  as  I  have  said, 
with  the  rigor  of  his  eliminatic  i ;  and  the  very  omissions 
contribute  their  element  of  beauty  to  the  general  effect. 
Certain  surfaces  are  closely  and  finely  covered,  while 
others  are  left  altogether  blan} ,  with  the  effect  of  wide 
significant  margins.  Their  white  spaces  are  something  to 
rest  and  please  the  eye  on  their  own  account,  as  well  as  to 
give  an  accent  to  the  shaded  greys  and  blacks  of  the  por 
tions  treated.  There  is  given  ;„  pleasing  sense  of  reserve- 
power,  of  fertile  unbroken  ground,  particularly  desirable 
for  work  that  might  otherwise  incur  the  reproach  of  an 
excess  of  cultivation.  *  *'"• 

(a)    The  Wings  of  the  Dove 

Naturally  there  are,  even  here,  varying  degrees  of 
effectiveness.  The  first  of  the  three  novels  is  distinctly 
less  satisfying  than  the  others.  The  comparative  want 
of  lucidity  of  "The  Dove"  his  already  been  referred  to 
the  less  happy  management  of  the  point  of  view.  But 
that  somewhat  technical  circumstance  must  be  referred 
back  still  further  to  a  fault  in  conception.  "The  Dove" 
seems  not  to  have  been  so  steadily  and  singly  conceived 
as  its  companion  works.  Hence  the  several  "blocks"  of 
narrative, — those  dealing  primarily  with  Kate,  those  with 


Full  Prime  263 


Milly,  those  with  Merton,  and  those  of  which  one  cannot 
so  readily  declare  with  whom  they  deal  primarily.  These 
give  somewhat  the  impression  of  plates  separately  en 
graved,  and  while  concerned  with  related  subjects, 
engraved  each  in  its  own  style,  thus  leaving  room  for 
uncertainty  as  to  their  being  of  the  same  set.  They  have 
their  carefully  devised  relation  to  each  other,  their  refer 
ence  back  and  forth ;  and  yet  when  one  attempts  a  clear 
statement  of  the  general  design  running  through  the 
series,  one  is  somewhat  at  a  IDSS.  One  is  at  a  loss  whether 
to  make  the  statement  in  ttrems  of  Kate's  experience  or 
Milly's  or  Merton's ;  and  if  the  key  lies  in  the  community 
or  correspondence  of  experience  of  the  three  characters, 
it  is  a  key  hard  to  turn  in  I:his  lock.  For  the  stubborn 
fact  remains  that  at  times  it  is  one,  at  times  it  is  another 
that  is  our  main  concern.  The  first  book,  dealing  with 
Kate's  family  background,  *he  third  book,  showing  us 
Milly  in  the  Alps,  are  both  ^considerably  out  of  focus; 
and  in  the  Venetian  part  of  the  story,  Milly  is  not  suffi 
ciently  present  in  person,  she  has  too  passive  a  role,  for 
a  fully  satisfactory  development  of  the  contrast  between 
her  and  Kate  which  accounts  for  the  final  conversion  of 
Merton.  The  account  we  get  of  his  final  visit  at  the 
palace  is  too  roundabout  to  appease  our  legitimate  appe 
tite  for  explanations.  It  may  appeal  more  to  our  imagina 
tion,  with  its  mystery  so  maintained,  but  our  intelligence 
remains  unsatisfied.  We  make  out  in  retrospect  the 
process  by  which  Merton's  Heart  and  conscience  were 
alienated  from  his  beloved;  we  make  out  at  last  the  set 
of  the  main  tide.  But  the  surface  is  too  much  broken 
up  with  choppy  waves  and  cross-currents,  for  us  to  make 
this  out  without  more  study  than  the  artist  can  properly 
demand. 


264  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

(b)     The  Golden  Bowl 

There  is  no  hint  of  confusion  or  unsteadiness  about  the 
conception  or  execution  of  "The  Golden  Bowl/'  If  the 
two  parts  do  show  us  two  different  faces  of  the  medal, 
they  are  two  faces  that  exactly  correspond.  And  the 
story  could  hardly  have  been  told  in  any  other  way.  It 
was  in  the  first  part  the  story  of  the  Prince,  Maggie  being, 
by  the  very  conditions  of  the  plot,  so  innocently  uncon 
scious  of  the  situation  that  was  growing  up  about  her 
devotion  to  her  father.  And,  since  the  author  did  choose 
to  show  us  the  second  part  through  the  eyes  of  Maggie, 
we  realize  how  much  richer  were  the  possibilities  of  that 
alternative.  She  has  now  become  the  center  of  the  web. 
She  is  now  the  principal  actor,  since  it  has  been  so  clearly 
put  up  to  her  to  bring  them  out  of  the  labyrinth  into 
which  she  has  led  them.  And  it  is  the  magnificent  gener 
osity  of  her  reactions,  best  exhibited  from  her  own  side, 
that  brings  about  the  conversion  of  Amerigo. 

Besides,  and  this  is  perhaps  the  great  point,  the  change 
of  center  from  Amerigo  to  Maggie  enables  the  author 
to  show  us  the  situation  dawning  slowly  on  the  mind  first 
of  one  then  of  another  of  the  principal  actors.  This  is  not 
a  reduplication,  since  the  position  and  the  outlook  of 
the  two  are  so  different  that  it  is,  subjectively,  a  different 
situation.  But  it  makes  possible  that  cumulative  effect 
that  is  so  precious  a  result  of  this  method, — that  re 
inforcement  by  gradual  accretion,  by  repeated  insistence. 
It  is  like  the  effect  of  a  solemn  theme  in  music,  growing 
in  effectiveness  through  repetition  in  different  keys. 
With  the  deepening  of  our  concern,  the  situation  grows 
at  once  more  real  and  more  urgent.  It  wraps  us  about 
more  and  more  voluminously.  It  looms  ever  more  solid 
and  portentous.  It  weighs  upon  us  with  ever  increasing 


Full  Prime  265 


weight.  It  is  here  the  method  shows  its  possibilities  for 
drama.  The  peculiar  strength  of  this  book  lies  in  the 
long  strain  almost  to  agony  of  a  struggle  largely  beneath 
the  surface  and  all  the  more  terrible  for  the  suppression 
of  word  and  gesture.  This  and  the  darkness  and  ugliness 
investing  the  mind  of  Charlotte  give  its  sombre  tone,  its 
deep  rich  coloring  to  the  work. 

There  is  nothing  sensational  about  this  drama,  since, 
for  one  thing,  Maggie  does  not  allow  it  to  become  for  her 
an  affair  of  the  nerves.  There  is  nothing  Poesque  about 
its  sinister  and  mysterious  notes.  And  yet  there  is  some 
suggestion  of  the  earlier  American  writer  in  the  strange 
figures  of  speech  and  the  romantic  accessories  that  raise 
the  whole  to  a  high  imaginative  level.  It  might  be  the 
fantasy  of  Poe  that  conceived  the  images  with  which 
Maggie  represented  to  herself  the  domestic  situation  she 
confronted. 

This  situation  had  been  occupying  for  months  and 
months  the  very  center  of  the  garden  of  her  life,  but 
it  had  reared  itself  there  like  some  strange  tall  tower  of 
ivory,  or  perhaps  rather  some  wonderful  beautiful  but 
outlandish  pagoda,  a  structure  plated  with  hard  bright 
porcelain,  coloured  and  figured  and  adorned  at  the  over 
hanging  eaves  with  silver  bells  that  tinkled  ever  so 
charmingly  when  stirred  by  chance  airs.  .  .  .  The  thing 
might  have  been,  by  the  distance  at  which  it  kept  her,  a 
Mahometan  mosque,  with  which  no  base  heretic  could 
take  a  liberty ;  there  so  hung  about  it  the  vision  of  one's 
putting  off  one's  shoes  to  enter  and  even  verily  of  one's 
paying  with  one's  life  if  found  there  as  an  interloper.  .  .  . 
She  had  knocked  .  .  .  though  she  could  scarce  have  said 
whether  for  admission  or  for  what ;  she  had  applied  her 
hand  to  a  cool  smooth  spot  and  had  waited  to  see  what 
would  happen.  Something  had  happened ;  it  was  as  if  a 
sound,  at  her  touch,  after  a  little,  had  come  back  to  her 


266  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

from  within;  a  sound  sufficiently  suggesting  that  her 
approach  had  been  noted.3 

Somewhat  in  the  Oriental  vein  again  is  the  image  in  which 
Maggie,  on  the  night  of  their  great  encounter  at  Fawns, 
pictures  Charlotte  hunting  her  as  a  splendid  animal  which 
has  broken  its  bars  and  is  dangerously  at  large.  Through 
out  this  scene  the  imagination  of  the  author  seems  tuned 
up  to  the  pitch  of  excitement  of  the  drama.  It  is  here  we 
have  the  figure  which  may  serve  as  the  note  for  the  whole 
second  part,  where  Maggie  realizes  "the  horror  of  rind 
ing  evil  seated  all  at  its  ease  where  she  had  only  dreamed 
of  good ;  the  horror  of  the  thing  hideously  behind,  behind 
so  much  trusted,  so  much  pretended,  nobleness,  clever 
ness,  tenderness."* 

This  richness  of  imagery  matches  that  of  the  title,  and 
reinforces  the  effect  made  by  the  repeated  appearance 
of  the  golden  bowl,  with  its  insistent  symbolism.  And 
these  join  with  the  special  sumptuousness  of  the  setting 
to  heighten  the  total  effect  of  richness.  So  that  if  we  feel 
the  color  scheme  of  "The  Golden  Bowl"  to  be  a  sombre 
one,  it  is  as  the  pictures  of  Rembrandt  or  Velasquez  are 
sombre.  It  has  a  dark  and  lustrous  splendor. 

(c)     The  Ambassadors 

"The  Ambassadors"  has  the  distinction  of  being  at 
once  the  simplest  and  the  most  complex  in  design  of  all 
the  studies  of  James.  It  is  simple  in  being  an  uninter 
rupted  record  of  the  intellectual  adventure  of  one  man 
in  the  exploration  of  one  simple  human  situation.  The 
problem  of  Strether  draws  its  beautiful  continuous  line 

3  Vol.  XXIV,  pp.  3-4. 
*  Id.,  p.  237. 


Full  Prime  267 


through  the  whole  series  of  twelve  books,  a  line  gently 
and  at  last  decidedly  curving,  yet  never  broken  or  ob 
scured.  But  the  study  is  at  the  same  time  complex  or 
multiple  in  the  number  of  aspects  under  which  the  sub 
ject  may  be  viewed  and  named. 

There  is  most  obviously  the  particular  problem  of  Chad 
Newsome,  which  forms  the  subject  upon  which  the  intelli 
gence  of  Str ether  is  perpetually  exercised,  and  which 
determines  the  direction  of  all  his  "adventure."  Yet 
I  should  hardly  call  this  the  subject  of  the  book :  it  is  too 
particular,  too  limited  in  its  portee.  The  subject  proper 
is  something  more  abstract :  it  is  the  matter  of  free  intel 
lectual  exploration  in  general,  of  the  open  mind  in  con 
trast  to  the  mind  closed  and  swaddled  in  prejudice  and 
narrow  views.  Under  another  aspect  this  is  seen  to  be 
again  the  inveterate  contrast  between  the  cosmopolitan 
and  the  provincial,  between  the  European  and  the  Ameri 
can  outlook.  Strether's  discovery  of  the  open  mind  is 
his  discovery  of  Europe.  It  is  Europe  that  teaches  him 
how  many  and  how  delicate  considerations  are  involved 
in  the  solution  of  his  problem, — how  much  depends  on 
facts  and  "values"  not  to  be  lightly  determined  in  ad 
vance.  And  if  it  is  Europe  that  stands  here  for  the  open 
mind,  this  Europe  is  more  specifically  embodied  in  the 
most  cosmopolitan  of  cities. 

Which  makes  it  possible  to  say  that  the  subject  of  this 
study  is  Paris.  It  is  Paris  that  gives  its  particular  tone 
and  color  to  this  work.  It  is  hard  to  determine  the  respec 
tive  parts  in  producing  this  effect  of  Paris  material  and 
Paris  spiritual.  If  the  predominance  of  white  in  this 
picture  and  the  special  quality  of  the  white  always  bring 
to  mind  the  color  of  Manet,  it  may  well  be  our  own  im 
pressions  of  the  physical  city  upon  which  the  author 


268  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

draws  largely  for  his  effect.  His  descriptions  are  no 
more  extended,  I  think,  than  is  usual  in  the  later  novels, 
but  we  cannot  escape  the  insistent  note  of  this  back 
ground,  which  is  always  so  vividly  and  yet  discreetly 
present.  The  high  balconies  over  animated  streets,  the 
cheerful  interiors  of  restaurant  and  cafe,  domestic  in 
teriors  in  varied  but  ever  exquisite  taste,  the  more  stagey 
decor  of  church  and  theatre,  the  light  open  spaces  of 
place  and  quai,  all  keep  us  reminded  of  the  physical 
brightness  and  amenity  of  Paris. 

But  one  can  hardly  distinguish  background  and  fore 
ground.  There  is  not  the  least  suggestion — such  as  one 
may  sometimes  detect  in  the  earlier  novels  laid  in  Paris — 
of  an  artificial  bringing  together  of  characters  and  setting, 
of  the  scenery's  being  let  down  behind  the  figures.  It  is 
one  result  of  the  method  of  James  that  his  people  seem 
to  belong  in  their  setting.  It  has  had  time  to  grow  up 
about  them ;  they  have  had  time  to  take  on  the  coloration 
of  their  environment.  Chad  and  Maria  Gostrey  and 
Little  Bilham,  as  well  as  Gloriani  and  Madame  de  Vion- 
net,  have  quite  the  air  of  natives ;  and  we  are  invited  to 
behold  the  entire  process  of  acclimatization  of  Lambert 
Strether. 

The  characters  are  Paris  spiritual.  And  as  the  physical 
atmosphere  is  one  of  suffused  and  tempered  light,  so  the 
spiritual  atmosphere  is  one  of  intelligence  tempered  with 
imagination.  When  Strether  looks  back  so  wistfully  on 
his  earlier  visit  to  Paris,  when  he  regrets  the  subsequent 
employments  which  have  cheated  him  of  "life,"  it  is  the 
life  of  the  intelligence  that  he  has  in  mind.  He  thinks 
of  all  the  "movements"  he  has  missed  through  his  absence 
from  the  capital  of  the  world.  He  thinks  of  all  the  talk, 
— talk  freely  and  genially  ranging  without  vulgar  hin- 


Full  Prime  269 


drance  over  the  fields  of  life  and  art,  which  in  such  a 
view  are  not  to  be  divorced.  He  has  done  the  best  he 
could  for  himself  in  Woollett.  He  has  attached  himself 
to  the  woman  of  highest  intelligence  and  most  imposing 
character  in  the  place.  He  has  published  a  magazine 
with  a  green  cover.  But  he  has  not  enjoyed  there  the 
intellectual  amenities  for  which  he  has  himself  such  an 
unusual  aptitude.  He  has  never  found  intelligence 
tempered  with  imagination,  intelligence  made  sociable. 
The  errand  that  takes  him  abroad  proves  to  be  his  great 
occasion  for  making  up  arrears.  The  fortunate  encounter 
with  Maria  Gostrey  opens  his  eyes  to  the  possibilities  of 
discriminating  thought  on  many  subjects.  Europe,  on 
her  showing,  appears  to  be  an  institution  offering  special 
facilities  for  play  of  mind  and  imagination.  The  problem 
confronting  him  is  not  so  bald  and  simple  as  he  had 
been  led  to  believe.  It  is  a  subject  calling  for  planned 
and  gradual  stages  of  approach.  It  has  as  many  aspects 
as  a  problem  in  metaphysics,  and  must  be  considered 
again  and  again  from  one  side  and  another.  It  is  a 
fortress  of  many  circumvallations,  or  a  Jericho  that  must 
be  seven  times  encircled  before  its  walls  will  tumble  to  the 
blowing  of  his  trumpet.  He  must  not  let  himself  be 
bullied  or  hurried  into  a  decision  by  his  own  interest  or 
by  any  moral  prejudice  or  anxiety.  He  may  allow  him 
self — what  is,  we  feel,  the  luxury  he  most  craves — that 
clear  impartiality  of  consideration  which  is  so  congenial 
to  the  Gallic  spirit. 

If  there  is  one  of  his  characters  whom  we  are  tempted 
to  identify  with  Henry  James  himself,  it  is  Lambert 
Strether.  His  role  calls  more  than  any  other  for  this 
brooding  exercise  of  a  mind  detached  upon  the  human 
spectacle.  His  maturity  and  independence,  his  sympa- 


270  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

thetic  and  discriminating  quality  of  mind,  his  patience  and 
the  unfailing  satisfaction  he  takes  in  the  interpretation 
of  his  subject,  all  make  us  think  again  and  again  of  the 
author  of  these  novels  and  the  man  who  sat  for  Mr. 
Sargent's  portrait.  And  in  this  story,  so  given  shape  by 
the  intelligence  of  this  character,  James  fashioned  for 
himself  the  most  perfect  vehicle  for  his  own  habit  of 
reflection.  He  is  himself,  like  Strether,  profoundly  moral 
in  his  sentiment.  But  he  and  his  creature  both  seem  to 
feel  that,  if  the  intelligence  is  to  be  used  for  the  eventual 
benefit  of  the  moral  passion,  it  must  not  be  warped  by  any 
moral  pressure;  it  must  be  left  absolutely  free  to  reach 
its  own  conclusions.  And  for  both  of  them  the  greatest 
of  pleasures  is  that  extended  rumination  over  life  by 
which  its  true  values  may  come  to  be  appreciated.  The 
tone  of  "The  Ambassadors"  is  accordingly  the  nearest 
we  ever  come  to  the  very  tone  of  Henry  James.  It  is  the 
tone  of  large  and  sociable  speculation  upon  human  nature, 
a  tone  at  once  grave  and  easy,  light  and  yet  deep,  earnest 
and  yet  free  from  anxiety.  It  is  the  tone,  most  of  all, 
of  the  leisurely  thinker,  well-assured  that  maturity  can 
be  the  product  only  of  time.  And  what  he  offers  us  are 
fruits  well  ripened  in  the  sun  of  his  thought. 


CHARACTERS 

Certain  characters  are  referred  to,  some  of  them  rather 
frequently,  without  naming  the  stories  in  which  they 
appear.  The  following  partial  list  may  be  helpful  to 
readers  who  are  not  familiar  with  all  the  stories : 

Isabel  Archer,  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady." 

Mrs.  Assingham,  "The  Golden  Bowl." 

Nanda  Brookenham,  "The  Awkward  Age." 

Kate  Croy,  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove." 

Merton  Densher,  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove." 

Mrs.  Gereth,  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton." 

Maria  Gostrey,  "The  Ambassadors." 

Rowland  Mallett,  "Roderick  Hudson." 

Mitchy,  "The  Awkward  Age." 

Gabriel  Nash,  "The  Tragic  Muse." 

Christopher  Newman,  "The  American." 

Hyacinth  Robinson,  "The  Princess  Casamassima." 

Charlotte  Stant,  "The  Golden  Bowl." 

Lambert  Strether,  "The  Ambassadors." 

Milly  Theale,  "The  Wings  of  the  Dove." 

Maggie  Verver,  "The  Golden  Bowl." 

Fleda  Vetch,  "The  Spoils  of  Poynton." 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

A  comprehensive  bibliography  of  James  is  not  called 
for  within  the  scope  of  this  work.  There  are  already  in 
print  two  satisfactory  bibliographies,  up  to  and  including 
the  year  1905:  one,  compiled  by  Mr.  Frederick  Allen 
King,  included  as  an  appendix  in  Miss  Elizabeth  Luther 
Gary's  "The  Novels  of  Henry  James"  (Putnam,  1905)  ; 
the  other,  by  Mr.  Le  Roy  Phillips,  more  complete  and 
making  up  an  entire  volume,  published  in  1906  by  Hough- 
ton,  Mifflin  in  this  country  and  by  Constable  in  England. 
There  is  also  a  list  of  the  first  editions  of  publications 
in  book  form,  both  English  and  American,  appended  to 
the  volume  on  Henry  James  in  the  "Writers  of  the  Day" 
series  (Holt,  1916)  written  by  Miss  Rebecca  West.  It  is 
sufficient  for  the  purpose  of  this  study  to  include  a  list 
of  books  by  Henry  James  which  have  appeared  since 
1905,  not  including  reprints,  together  with  a  chronological 
list  of  all  the  novels,  indicating  their  first  appearance  in 
magazines  and  in  book  form,  both  in  America  and  in 
England.  This  latter  will  be  of  assistance  to  the  reader 
in  tracing  the  progress  of  James  in  working  out  his 
"method."  In  both  lists  I  include  certain  books  not  yet 
published  in  America  at  the  time  of  printing.  I  have  had 
frequent  occasion  to  mention  the  New  York  Edition  of 
the  Novels  and  Tales  published  during  1907-1909  by 
Scribner  in  this  country  and  by  Macmillan  in  England. 
Besides  the  studies  of  James  by  Miss  Gary  and  Miss 
West  already  mentioned,  there  is  one  by  Mr.  Ford  Madox 
Hueffer,  Seeker,  1914,  and  Dodd,  1916.  "French  Poets 


Bibliographical  Note  273 

and  Novelists"  and  "Partial  Portraits,"  volumes  of 
critical  essays  by  James,  were  first  published  by  Mac- 
millan  in,  respectively,  1878  and  1888. 

LIST  OF  BOOKS  BY  JAMES  PUBLISHED  SINCE  1905 

The  American  Scene.  1907.  Harper,  New  York ;  Chap 
man  and  Hall,  London. 

Views  and  Reviews.  Introduction  by  Le  Roy  Phillips. 
1908.  Ball  Publishing  Co.,  Boston. 

Italian  Hours.  Illustrated  by  Joseph  Pennell.  1909. 
Houghton,  Mifflin,  Boston  and  New  York;  Heine- 
mann,  London. 

The  Finer  Grain.  1910.  Scribner,  New  York ;  Methuen, 
London.  This  volume  includes  the  following  tales : 
The  Velvet  Glove,  Mora  Montravers,  A  Round  of 
Visits,  Crapy  Cornelia,  The  Bench  of  Desolation. 

The  Outcry.  1911.  Scribner,  New  York;  Methuen, 
London. 

The  Henry  James  Year  Book.  Selected  and  arranged  by 
Evelyn  Garnaut  Smalley.  1911,  R.  G.  Badger,  Bos 
ton;  1912,  Dent,  London. 

A  Small  Boy  and  Others.  1913.  Scribner,  New  York ; 
Macmillan,  London. 

Notes  of  a  Son  and  Brother.  1914.  Scribner,  New 
York;  Macmillan,  London. 

Notes  on  Novelists :  with  some  other  notes.  1914.  Scrib 
ner,  New  York;  Dent,  London. 

Pictures  and  other  Passages  from  Henry  James.  Selected 
by  Ruth  Head.  1916.  Chatto  and  Windus. 

The  Ivory  Tower.  1917.  Collins,  London;  Scribner, 
New  York. 

The  Sense  of  the  Past.  1917.  Collins,  London;  Scrib 
ner,  New  York. 


274  The  Method  of  Henry  James 

The  Middle  Years.     1917.     Collins,  London;  Scribner, 
New  York. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  THE  NOVELS  OF  JAMES. 

(Stars  are  attached  to  the  titles  of  novels  not  included 
in  the  New  York  Edition.  The  last  three  appeared  too 
late  for  inclusion ;  in  the  case  of  all  the  others,  exclusion 
from  the  canon  must  have  been  deliberate.) 

1871.         *Watch  and  Ward.    Atlantic  Monthly,  August 
to  December. 

— 1878,  Houghton,  Osgood  (present  pub 
lisher  Houghton,  Mifflin). 

1875.  Roderick  Hudson.    Atlantic  Monthly,  January 

to  December. 

— 1876,  James  R.  Osgood  (present  publisher 
Houghton,  Mifflin),  Boston;  1879,  Macmil- 
lan,  London. 

1876-77.     The  American.    Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1876, 
to  May,  1877. 

— 1877,  James  R.  Osgood  (present  publisher 
Houghton,  Mifflin),  Boston;  Ward,  Lock, 
London. 

1878.        *The  Europeans.     Atlantic  Monthly,  July  to 
October. 

— 1878,  Houghton,  Osgood  (present  pub 
lisher  Houghton,  Mifflin),  Boston;  Macmil- 
lan,  London. 

1879-80.  *Confidence.  Scribner's  Monthly,  August,  1879, 
to  January,  1880. 

— 1880,  Houghton,  Osgood  (present  pub 
lisher  Houghton,  Mifflin),  Boston;  Chatto 
and  Windus,  London. 


Bibliographical  Note  275 

1880.  ^Washington  Square.  Cornhill  Magazine,  June 
to  November,  and  Harper's  Monthly,  July 
to  December. 

— 1881,  Harper,  New  York;  the  same,  to 
gether  with  The  Pension  Beaurepas  and  A 
Bundle  of  Letters,  two  volumes,  Macmillan, 
London. 

1880-81.  The  Portrait  of  a  Lady.  Macmillan's  Maga 
zine,  October,  1880,  to  November,  1881,  and 
Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1880,  to  De 
cember,  1881. 

— 1881,  three  volumes,  Macmillan,  London ; 
one  volume,  Houghton,  Mifflin,  Boston  and 
New  York. 

1885-86.  *The  Bostonians.     Century  Magazine,  Febru 
ary,  1885,  to  February,  1886. 
— 1886,  three  volumes,  Macmillan,  London 
and  New  York. 

1885-86.     The  Princess  Casamassima.    Atlantic  Monthly, 
September,  1885,  to  October,  1886. 
— 1886,  three  volumes,  Macmillan,  London 
and  New  York. 

1889-90.  The  Tragic  Muse.  Atlantic  Monthly,  January, 
1889,  to  May,  1890. 

— 1890,  two  volumes,  Houghton,  Mifflin, 
Boston  and  New  York ;  three  volumes,  Mac 
millan,  London. 

1896.          The  Spoils  of  Poynton.    This  novel  appeared 
under  the  title  of  "The  Old  Things"  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  April  to  October. 
— 1897,  Houghton,  Mifflin,  Boston  and  New 
York;  Heinemann,  London. 


The  Method  of  Henry  James 


1896.  *The  Other  House.     One  volume,  Macmillan, 

New  York;  two  volumes,  Heinemann,  Lon 
don. 

1897.  What  Maisie  Knew.     The  Chap  Book,  Jan 

uary  15  to  August  1,  and  The  New  Review, 
February  to  July. 

—1897,  Herbert  S.  Stone,  Chicago  and  New 
York;  Heinemann,  London. 

1898-99.     The  Awkward  Age.    Harper's  Weekly,  Octo 
ber  1,  1898,  to  January  7,  1899. 
—  1899,   Harper,    New    York;   Heinemann, 
London. 

1901.  *The   Sacred   Fount.     Scribner,   New   York; 

Methuen,  London. 

1902.  The  Wings  of  the  Dove.    Two  volumes,  Scrib 

ner,    New    York;    one   volume,    Constable, 
London. 

1903.  The  Ambassadors.     North  American  Review. 

January  to  December. 

—1903,  Harper,  New  York  ;  Methuen,  Lon 

don. 

1904.  The  Golden  Bowl.     Two  volumes,  Scribner, 

New  York;  one  volume,  Methuen,  London. 
1911.        *The  Outcry.    Scribner,  New  York;  Methuen, 

London. 
1917.         *The  Ivory  Tower.    Collins,  London  ;  Scribner, 

New  York. 
1917.         *The    Sense   of   the   Past.      Collins,    London; 

Scribner,  New  York. 


INDEX 


Novels,  tales,  books  of  criticism  and  reminiscence,  referred 
to,  alluded  to,  or  quoted.  Figures  in  italics  refer  to  passages 
in  which  the  story  is  taken  up  for  particular  consideration. 


The  Ambassadors :  5,  15,  16,  17, 
21-2,  28  footnote  3,  30,  34,  46, 
48,  51-4,  56,  63,  65,  67,  71, 
77-8,  81-4,  85,  94,  97,  101-2, 
106,  107,  113,  121,  135,  138, 
140-1,  144,  158,  170,  190,  193- 
4,  204,  245,  252,  254,  255-6, 
260-1,  266-70. 

The  Altar  of  the  Dead :  234. 
iThe  American:  5,  42,  70,  73-4, 
I    115,  120,  121,  134,  150,  190, 
I    199-205,  254. 

The  Aspern  Papers :  69,  190. 

The  Author  of  Beltraffio :  69. 

The  Awkward  Age:  19-20,  28 
footnote  3,  60-1,  85,  87-90, 
100-1,  123,  124,  127,  140-1, 
150,  158-9,  197,  201,  228,  235, 
236,  237,  243-9,  250,  251,  254. 

The  Beast  in  the  Jungle:  Tg, 

The  Beldonald  Holbein :  69,  71, 
151. 

The  Bench  of  Desolation:  70, 
172,  178-9,  215  footnote  21. 

Benvolio:  186. 

The  Bostopians:  3,  5,  42,  73, 
222,  224-6. 

Broken  Wings:  123. 

The  Chaperon :  234. 


Confidence:  4,  205,  223-4. 

The  Coxon  Fund:  31  footnote 
7. 

Crapy  Cornelia*  70,  170  foot 
note  4. 

Daisy  Miller:  3,  14,  35,  157, 
254. 

The  Death  of  the  Lion:  31 
footnote  7,  69. 

De  Grey:  a  Romance:  184-5. 

Eugene  Pickering:  185. 

Europe:  69,  71. 

The  Europeans:  4,  222,  223, 
226-7. 

The  Figure  in  the  Carpet:  69, 
145-8,  152-5. 

Flickerbridge :  156. 

The  Friends  of  the  Friends: 
185. 

Gabrielle  de  Bergerac:  186. 

The  Ghostly  Rental :  185. 

The  Golden  Bowl :  4,  5,  14,  29- 
30,  35,  46-7,  48,  63,  67-8,  71, 
78-9,  85-6,  88-90,  93,  95-7,  120, 
123,  125,  127-8,  135,  144,  160, 
170,  197,  205-6,  210,  219,  235, 
251,  254,  255-60,  264-6. 

In  a  Cage:  126. 


Index 


The  Ivory  Tower:  2  footnote 

1,  168  footnote  3. 
The  Last  of  the  Valerii:  187, 

189-90. 

The  Liar:  69. 
A  Light  Man:  167,  180. 
Madame  de  Mauves:  70,  135, 

142-3,  167,  190. 
A  Madonna  of  the  Future :  68, 

167,  186,  187. 

Master  Eustace:  173-4,  179. 
Maud-Evelyn:  40-1. 
My  Friend  Bingham :  177-9. 
The  Next  Time:  31   footnote 

3. 

Notes  on  Novelists:  14,  136-8. 
Notes  of  a  Son  and  Brother: 

17  footnote  8. 
The  Other  House :  94,  97,  236 

footnote  3. 
The  Outcry:  4,  60-1,  94,  97, 

238,  ^9-50. 
Pandora :  69. 
Partial  Portraits:  113,  125-6, 

133-4,  143. 
A  Passionate  Pilgrim:  68,  120, 

167,  186-7. 
The  Patagonia:  69. 
The  Pension  Beaurepas :  68. 
Poor  Richard:  175-6. 
The  Portrait  of  a  Lady :  4,  12, 

14,  17,  23  footnote  14,  35,  42, 

74,  88-90,  93,  95,  97,  103,  135, 

138,    150,    152-4,    157-9,    170, 

190,  204,  205-11,  212,  214,  216, 

219,  222,  239,  254. 


The  Princess  Casamassima:  4, 
5,  42-3,  97,  123,  141,  157,  170, 
181,  190,  197,  212-15,  216,  219, 
228. 

The  Private  Life :  70. 

The  Pupil :  234. 

The  Real  Right  Thing :  185. 

The  Real  Thing:  3,  15,  16. 

Roderick  Hudson :  4,  5,  42,  64, 
67,  73-6,  94,  103,  115,  140,  160, 
167,  186,  190,  191-9,  201,  222, 
234. 

The  Romance  of  Certain  Old 
Clothes:  184,  186. 

The  Sacred  Fount:  3,  5  foot 
note  4,  43-6,  86,  87-8,  127, 
237,  250-4. 

The  Sense  of  the  Past :  2  foot 
note  1. 

A  Small  Boy  and  Others :  169, 
231. 

The  Spoils  of  Poynton:  3,  4,  5, 
15,  56,  61,  65-6,  84,  88-93,  95- 
7,  108,  113,  114,  115,  120,  132, 
140-1,  150,  152,  157-9,  170, 
204,  210,  219,  228,  233-6,  237, 
239. 

The  Story  in  It:  18-9,  152. 

The  Story  of  a  Year:  173. 

The  Sweetheart  of  Monsieur 
Briseux:  187. 

The  Tragic  Muse:  4,  5,  32-3, 
36  footnote  15,  42,  66,  93,  97, 
150-2,  157,  169,  178,  216-20, 
234,  254. 

Travelling  Companions:  187-9. 


Index 


279 


The  Turn  of  the  Screw:  185, 

234. 

The  Two  Faces:  69. 
Views  and  Reviews :  27,  32. 
Washington  Square :  3,  94,  205, 

222,  223,  228-32. 
Watch  and  Ward :  181-3. 
What  Maisie  Knew:  28-9,  62, 


64  footnote  15,  67,  71,  113, 
135,  144,  236,  237,  238-42,  251. 
The  Wings  of  the  Dove :  5,  14, 
17,  20-1,  29-30,  33-4,  35,  47-9, 
51,  60,  66-7,  68,  78,  85,  94,  97, 
105,  107-8,  120,  127-30,  135, 
139-41,  144,  152,  158-9,  169- 
70,  181,  190,  255-6,  258-60, 
262-3. 


HOME  USE 

CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
MAIN  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 
1 -month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405. 
6-month  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books 

to  Circulation  Desk. 
Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior 

to  due  date. 

ALL  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  RECALL  7  DAYS 
AFTER  DATE  CHECKED  OUT. 


LD21-A30m-7,'73 
(R2275S10)476 — A-32  I 


OJ\ 

University  of  California 
Berkeley 


Ji,,LSE,.RKELEY  LIBRARIES 


COSS5Mflt7b 


5i; 

V 

•     - 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


